22-year-old young England pacer Lauren Bell bowled the Ball of the Tournament in the ongoing Women’s Hundred 2023 in the London Spirit Women vs Southern Brave Women game on Tuesday at Lord’s.
With the cloud cover and some rain around, bowling for Southern Brave Lauren Bell got perfect conditions to deliver a hooping inswinging delivery – akin to what James Anderson has bowled plenty of times in Test cricket – that castled the London Spirit opener, the Australian Grace Harris for just one run in the first set with the new ball.
Using the shine and movement that the new ball offers, plus some seam movement available from the surface, Lauren Bell made use of all of it to the tee to bowl this sensational delivery that left Grace Harris, one of the best T20 batters in the world, stunned and flabbergasted, the onlookers’ jaws hanging.
And to bowl it at the Lord’s ground, the Mecca of cricket, made it even more special for Lauren Bell.
Going wide of the crease, Lauren Bell bowled a vicious inswinger. Starting from well outside the off-stump, the delivery kept coming into the right-hander Grace Harris, pitched also considerably outside the off-stump line, but moved in even more significantly into the sticks.
Harris tried to play a drive on the off-side but missed the ball completely, the ball beating her inside edge and crashing into the stumps, hitting the top of the middle stump. Bell was all smiles while Harris couldn’t believe it.
Watch: Lauren Bell bowls the Ball of the Tournament in Women’s Hundred
What a ball this was from Lauren Bell đ„#TheHundred2023 pic.twitter.com/eMmiAjRp2T
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) August 8, 2023
Lauren Bell had impressive figures of 1/24 in her 20 balls sets. Meanwhile, Maia Bouchier scored 63* (42) balls to help the Southern Brave win by 5 wickets with only 3 balls to spare against London Spirit in the chase of 105 runs in a rain-truncated match that was chiseled down to 85 balls per innings.
