London Spirit begin new Hundred era with Tinie Tempah and double defeat

London Spirit launched their new era with double defeat at Lord’s, and though they may have new owners, new coaches and new players it seems they’re still getting the same results. For the fifth time in their six-year history the men started their season with defeat, losing by seven runs a game of the Hundred that Liam Livingstone came very close to turning into The One.

The Spirit captain took responsibility for 20 of the last 25 balls of Manchester Super Giants’ innings, shouldering what should have been the hardest part of the bowling burden, and finished with two wickets for just 14. Then, with his team flailing in pursuit of 139, he scored 69 off 40 to keep them in the contest until the moment he swung at its antepenultimate delivery and was bowled by Sonny Baker.

They had been helped by a run of drops and misfields by the Super Giants, most notably when Livingstone heaved Noor Ahmad to deep midwicket where Tim Seifert – whose 67 off 45 ultimately decided the match – let the ball bounce off his hands and into the boundary padding for six. But on the pitch that four days earlier allowed England and India to score 747 runs between them in a ODI batters in both games struggled, and even Seifert soared for only part of his innings. His team’s knock was a curiosity, with 26 runs and one wicket coming in the first 25 balls and six wickets falling for just 22 in the final 26, while in between they rampaged to 90 at nearly two runs a ball.

Tinie Tempah performing, with fire screaming skywards behind him, was an unlikely sight at Lord’s. Photograph: Adam Davy/PA

Of the crowd of 23,847 some will have come for the women’s game, some for the men, and others presumably for early-noughties chart-topping rapper Tinie Tempah. That said, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that anyone will have shelled out the £55 required for an adult ticket to watch 20 minutes of twixt-game entertainment.

From pony racing to spear-throwing, from being requisitioned by the RAF to Jack Leach scoring 92 as a Test opener, Lord’s has witnessed a few unlikely sights over the years and that of Tempah, jets of fire screaming skywards behind him, was another to add to the list. But despite at one stage uttering the dreaded words “Lord’s, this is a brand new one” he produced a masterclass in scepticism-obliteration.

Helpfully, he spent very little of it on his heavily branded stage, favouring wading into the crowd to hug mildly bemused paunchy white blokes. “He was,” Eoin Morgan later enthused on Sky, “magnificent.” This might not have been the future Tempah envisaged when Pass Out was conquering the charts 16 years ago but it was one he embraced with winning enthusiasm.

It was not so much Pass Out as fail and out for London Spirit’s women, even if they started beautifully, with Grace Harris hitting the opening delivery for four. But that was very much as good as it got: by the end of the powerplay they were 23 for four and having to reset their ambitions to mere survival.

In the end they did not manage that, bowled out after 91 balls having scored just 80. No team in the history of the women’s Hundred has successfully defended a score below 106 and Spirit never looked likely to become the first, Super Giants cantering to a total that was neither of those things in just 59 balls to win by seven wickets, with Paige Scholfield carrying her side over the finish line with a four and a six off successive Josie Groves deliveries and in the process becoming the game’s top scorer with just 22.