MI London 164 for 6 (Pooran 39, S Curran 33, Raza 32) beat London Spirit 160 for 5 (Pretorius 52, Willey 31, Coles 30*) by four wickets<\/p>\n
Nothing less than a win would do for London Spirit<\/a> in the local derby but after a Sikandar Raza <\/a>masterclass, it was MI London<\/a> who came away with the points. They jumped up to second in the table, and made the Spirit the first team – men’s or women’s – officially ruled out of the knockout race.<\/p>\n Spirit, after their mauling at the hands of Sunrsiers Leeds on Tuesday, made three changes but came up short in front of a record group-stage crowd of 27,721 at Lord’s.<\/p>\n MI London brought in Zimbabwe allrounder Raza as a replacement for Rashid Khan, away with Afghanistan on international duty, and he was part of a smart bowling performance. Their bowlers largely kept the ball away from the short side as Spirit’s innings flickered without bursting into life, despite a half-century from Lhuan-dre Pretorius<\/a>.Pretorius’s innings was ended by an outrageous boundary catch from Will Jacks<\/a>, who overbalanced on the edge, threw the ball up and then dived full length to complete the dismissal one-handed.David Willey<\/a> muscled his way to 31 but the earlier dismissals of power-hitters Liam Livingstone and Dewald Brevis meant that Spirit were always struggling to post the kind of score they would have liked.<\/p>\n It was only due to Jamie Overton and James Coles’ efforts at the death – Coles playing his first innings of substance for Spirit after signing for \u00a3390,000 in Marchs’ auction – that they reached a serviceable 160 for 5, meaning MI London would need to make the highest successful chase at Lord’s to secure the points.<\/p>\n Matt Fisher, earlier in the day picked in England’s Test squad, saw his first ball for Spirit disappear back over his head for six from the bat of Jacks but he had his Surrey team0mate’s wicket next ball, Adam Milne pouching the skier.<\/p>\n