Grace Harris has steered London Spirit to victory in the Hundred Women for the third match in three, maintaining the defending champions’ 100 per cent start in the English white-ball franchise competition.

In the tournament’s opening match, she scored an unbeaten 42-ball 89; in Spirit’s second she bowled the death over, successfully defending six runs with two to spare; and now she has hit an unbeaten 32-ball 50 to guide Spirit to victory at Old Trafford.

Chasing Manchester Originals’ 7-122, Spirit won by three wickets with two of their 100 balls remaining, thanks to a late flurry of boundaries by the Queenslander.

“I’m delighted with how I’m going,” Harris said.

“I think a lot of the principles that I’ve been working on within my game are paying off, and I just keep summing up conditions and whenever I’m injected into the game, I’m seeing what impact I can have.”

Put in to bat, Originals were 2-10 off 12 balls, including Kathryn Bryce out to a brilliant leg-side catch by wicketkeeper Georgia Redmayne, standing up to pacer Tara Norris.

Skipper Beth Mooney (26 off 20) counter-attacked creating a platform for West Indies’ Deandra Dottin (36 off 30) to lift the home side to a potentially defendable total.

Kira Chathli got the reply off to a good start with 34 off 30 after Redmayne perished for 11, but Spirit slid to 5-97, needing 26 runs off 16 balls.

Harris brought that down to nine from eight with a pair of sixes but Bryce took two wickets in two only for Sarah Glenn to edge, then drive boundaries to ensure Harris’s half-century was not in vain.

Harris is now the highest run-scorer in the competition with 157 followed by fellow Australians Meg Lanning (141) and Mooney (97). 

She also has the highest strike-rate (178.4) followed by another Aussie in Ash Gardner (175), and most sixes (nine) followed by Lanning (six).

Meanwhile in the men’s Hundred, David Warner made his second successive half-century but this time failed to take London Spirit to victory.

Having hit a 45-ball 70 not out on Saturday, the former Test opener went one better at Old Trafford, but his 51-ball 71 could not help his side overhaul Manchester Originals’ 6-163, closing on 6-153.

AAP