The Hundred 2024: Harry Brook guides Northern Superchargers to win on captaincy debut

Brook (34*) hit the winning runs with a six after Nicholas Pooran's 62 made light work of Southern Brave's 146

ECB Media | 30/07/2024 at 21:51

Headingly: Northern Superchargers 147-3, Southern Brave 146-8 - Northern Superchargers win by seven wickets

Nicholas Pooran smashed 62 from 34 deliveries to power Andrew Flintoff's Northern Superchargers to their first win in The Hundred this season.

Against an attack of Jofra Archer, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Rehan Ahmed and Akeal Hosein, Pooran was dominant from the get-go – demonstrating both why he had been first pick in The Hundred Draft and also the power of using your own bat, having been forced to borrow Phil Salt's on his debut against Trent Rockets.

Captain Harry Brook played a support role in a 50-partnership with Pooran, and was there at the end to win it in style and see the team in purple get off the mark in this year’s competition.

Southern Brave weren't quite at their domineering best, as they had been at Utilita Bowl last week, but they didn't do much wrong other than come up against Pooran with the bat and Adil Rashid with the ball.

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^{Kieron Pollard's 37 helped Southern Brave to a competitive total (ECB/Getty Images)}

On a track where spin was always going to be important, Rashid's 1-19 contributed to Brave's total of 146 for 8 coming up perhaps a touch light – though it did still require Superchargers' second-highest chase in the competition – but at the interval James Vince and his side would have felt in the game.

Archer fired up and touched 93mph but from the 15th ball onwards it was the Pooran show, the West Indian hitting five sixes and giving the Leeds crowd their fair share of catching practice on the way to a raucous home win.

Meerkat Match Hero Pooran said: "It feels amazing. After that first game we lost, playing back-to-back games here at home, we wanted the win.

"The guys played brilliantly, and I think the bowlers did amazingly.

"It's always beautiful to play here in England. The surface, the atmosphere – it's lovely."

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