Welsh Fire Urged To Stoke Things Up Again After Leus Du Plooy Knock Fails To Keep Winning Habit

By James Skeldon

Leus du Plooy has vowed that Welsh Fire will re-ignite their campaign quickly on Monday after suffering their first defeat in The Hundred.

The South African smashed a blazing 22-ball 43 which featured four sixes in what was ultimately a losing effort for Fire at home to Manchester Originals.

A win on Saturday would have moved Fire up to first place in the table and well on their way to qualifying for the knockout stages of the tournament. Now, they must ensure winning momentum is not reversed when they meet Oval Invincilbes in south London on Monday.

Despite du Plooy’s impressive innings, the game was taken away from his side by Manchester Originals’ highly effective opening batting partnership of Phil Salt and Joe Clarke.

It was the latter who pushed the pace of the innings as he brought up his half century in 25 balls.

Salt, the newly-capped England international, played a mature knock that took the match out of Welsh Fire’s reach.

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Earlier, du Plooy, had played a fluent innings on a pitch where others struggled as Welsh Fire posted 150-6 off their 100 balls before Manchester reached 153-3 to win by seven wickets with five balls to spare.

“I thought it was a decent pitch, maybe a tad on the slow side,” said du Plooy.

“It was a very competitive total at 150. I think we maybe missed a trick here and there with the ball and there were a few momentum shifts.

“I’m sure the guys will learn from it and we’ll be stronger in the next one.”

Welsh Fire have enjoyed a good run of batting form and their decent 150 runs was the Fire’s lowest total of their campaign, which shows how successful their batting has been.

“Today we wanted to get 140 on the board with around 50 balls to go so we actually got above what we thought was a competitive total.

“The ideal start is to have heaps of runs and no wickets down and that’s what they (Manchester Originals) did today.

 

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“I thought Clarke was the one who took the game away from us. I think the rest of them batted really well around him. He was the momentum shift in their innings.”

Despite reaching a more than competitive total, du Plooy still admits Welsh Fire missed the presence of Jonny Bairstow, who is arguably the current best white ball batter in the world.

The South African believes that replicating Bairstow’s effect is “impossible” but is still confident in his team’s batting depth can cover their star player’s absence following his recall by England.

“He is such a phenomenal player. But the guys we’ve got are more than able to do a job and we’ve got to back ourselves.

“I’m sure the guys will take a lot of confidence from the depth of our batting.”

Even though the Fire’s batting performance was very accomplished, their total was made to look 10 or 20 runs short.

That was partly due to the involvement of Salt. He is often the aggressor in the innings but was given the luxury of batting with Clarke who was knocking the ball to all parts.

“I think we bat very well in a partnership. He made it very easy for me,” said Salt.

 

Manchester Originals are going very nicely in their reply to Welsh Fire’s 150.

Joe Clarke is looking in very good touch as he closes in on his half-century.

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“It was just a case of giving him the strike and letting him get on with it.

“You have to be positive and aggressive to try and get ahead of the game early and that’s what me and Joe did.

“I think the most pleasing thing about the opening partnership was how the pair of us mixed the aggression in with some smart cricket.”

Welsh Fire will now look towards beating Oval Invincibles who are also looking to bounce back after their loss on Saturday night against Northern Superchargers.