Niekerk shines as the Hundred opens to a thrilling start

Dane van Niekerk's 56 not out off 42 balls led the Oval Invincibles to a thrilling five-wicket victory over Manchester Originals as cricket's newest format, The Hundred, saw the light of the day at one of world's oldest grounds -- the Oval in London.

Chasing 136 off 100 balls, the host's run chase got off to a terrible start when they lost four wickets for only 36 runs on the board. Three of them were to the Manchester captain Kate Cross who struck off consecutive deliveries to take out Alice Capsey and Grace Gibbs. At the fall of the fourth wicket off the 32nd ball, it being Cross's third scalp, the required rate got as steep as 100 needed off 69 balls.

That's when the South African pair of captain van Niekerk and Marizanne Kapp got together, adding 73 runs off 50 balls to set up the win. Kapp fell to Sophie Ecclestone which was achieved with two balls to spare in front of an enthusiastic 7000-strong crowd.

Harmanpreet Kaur was expensive with the ball, giving away 20 runs off the 10 balls she bowled but with the bat earlier in the evening, she was all style and substance during her innings of 16-ball 29. She arrived at the crease on the back of a 55-run, second-wicket stand between Lizelle Lee (42) and Georgie Boyce (21), and took her time before launching into Mady Villiers with four boundaries in a space of five balls.

Both Kaur and Lee fell inside 14 balls of each other to Tash Farrant, who would finish with a three-wicket haul and cull all the opposition's momentum at the time. Mignon du Preez's 13-ball 10 at the other end, though, hardly helped Manchester who finished with 135 off 100 balls, the score helped by 12* runs off 4 balls from Cross towards the end.

It was difficult to make sense of the total in this inaugural 100-ball match but van Niekerk's unbeaten fifty, consisting of 8 fours and a six, powered the hosts to an exciting win.

Brief Scores: Manchester Originals 135/6 in 100 balls (Lee 42, Kaur 29; Farrant 3-25) lost to Oval Invincibles 139/5 in 98 balls (van Niekerk 56*, Kapp 38; Cross 3-28) beat by five wickets