The Analysis: Southern Brave display ruthless efficiency

Brave have booked their place in the eliminator, with the prospect of a second successive final coming into view

Unbeaten and untouched, Southern Brave had won four games in a row, batting first in their last three, before meeting Trent Rockets at the Ageas Bowl and opting for a change of tack.

Trent have batted first in every match so far, twice defending low totals through the excellence of leg-spinners Alana King and Sarah Glenn. So, Anya Shrubsole's decision – on a surface that spun prodigiously from early on – didn't seem the obvious call.

But Brave's women are the standout team across both competitions, with the fewest losses in the tournament's two-year history and the most complete line-up under a head coach who tends to win more than she loses.

For King and Glenn, see Amanda-Jade Wellington – King's international understudy but The Hundred's leading wicket-taker.

For the rarity in English women's cricket of a left-arm seamer, see Freya Kemp, the teenager who debuted for England earlier this summer.

For an experienced, prodigious swinger of the new ball, see Anya Shrubsole, the captain.

For a tall seamer able to extract genuine bounce, see Lauren Bell, whose development of a back-of-the-hand slower ball helped her on the way to the best figures in the women's competition this year.

^{Amanda-Jade Wellington is The Hundred's leading wicket-taker (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)}

For an off-spinner, see Georgia Adams, who Shrubsole earmarked as a bowling option upon her arrival at Southern Vipers ahead of this season, well before the tournament started. Adams remains predominantly a batter, but the effectiveness of her bowling – round-arm and unorthodox – has progressed beyond reasonable expectation.

For a world-class allrounder, see Tahlia McGrath, arguably the best player in the world through 2022, signed off the back of winning Commonwealth Games gold.

By the time they'd raced through 20 sets of five, expertly marshalled by Shrubsole, the game was all but won. As good as Rockets have been with the ball, they had no chance of defending the lowest total of the 2022 edition against the tournament's most dominant opening pair.

Smriti Mandhana was Charlotte Edwards' first-choice pick when handed the blank canvas of a new team: a world-class left-hander prepared to take the game on from the start. She caressed Katherine Brunt's first ball for four through cover and attacked Nat Sciver with three boundaries over mid-off and a pull that bisected deep midwicket and square leg. Danni Wyatt played her natural game, hitting seven fours in 25 balls as an accompaniment to Mandhana's exhibition, which ended when she belted Bryony Smith for six to put the finishing touches to a 10-wicket hammering.

In doing so, Brave booked their place in the eliminator, with the prospect of a second successive final coming into view. They lost just once in last year's group stage, only to collapse at Lord's to hand Oval Invincibles the trophy, so there won't be any complacency in Edwards' camp, even after winning with such style that neither Sophia Dunkley nor Maia Bouchier were required to contribute with either bat or ball.

^{Lauren Bell claimed the best figures of the 2022 women's competition so far (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)}

Trent were strangled from the outset: Sciver faced 30 balls for her 19 and Elyse Villani 25 balls for 25. Only Marie Kelly, with 22 off 15, briefly looked like breaking free of the shackles, but even she came to the crease after Smith fell to the game's second ball.

Nothing was allowed to work: King and Brunt were promoted ahead of Abbey Freeborn but made six runs in 12 balls between them as Brave took all pace off the ball; when Glenn came in for the final delivery of the innings, she could only nail a wide slower-ball straight into the hands of Wellington at backward point.

Not for the first time in the last fortnight, everything Southern Brave touched came off.