Vipers beat Storm at Ageas Bowl

Southern Vipers 288/1 beat Western Storm 256 by 32 runs

Georgia Adams smashed the highest score of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy to send her Southern Vipers side to the final with a 32 run victory over Western Storm.

Vipers skipper Adams notched an imperious unbeaten 154, the seventh highest top-tier List A score in English domestic cricket, while struggling with cramp in her calf for the last third of her innings.

Adams, who is the tournament’s leading scorer with 379 runs, was brilliantly partnered by teenager Ella McCaughan (63) and Maia Bouchier (50 not out) in century stands as Vipers crashed 288 for one.

And after Charlie Dean’s 3-50 and Charlotte Taylor’s 4-41, Vipers maintained their 100 per cent record to set up a date at Edgbaston on September 27 with a game to spare.

From the moment Adams won the toss and elected to bat, she only left the playing field for a brief mid-innings break as she dominated the Storm bowling.

She and McCaughan attacked early with 57 coming off the powerplay, and the 100-partnership, the pair’s second together in three stands, needed only 127 balls to set an impressive foundation.

Adams reached her half-century first, in 64 balls, and was quickly followed by her 17-year-old partner in 84 deliveries, as the due put away the bad balls but rotated off good ones.

Adams was dropped at long-on by Georgia Hennessy but that proved the only blip in an outstanding innings, as the opening stand reached 155 – the second highest of the competition.

McCaughan was bowled when attempting a ramp but Bouchier seamlessly arrived and immediately struck at around a run-a-ball, her fifty coming in 47 balls.

But Adams was the main attraction and despite her injury, reached her century in 128 balls with a runner, before helping to add 90 in the last 10 overs to take her past an incredible 150.

The Storm lost top-order batters Lauren Parfitt, Fi Morris and Hennessy in six overs to Charlie Dean and Paige Scholfield to stunt the response to 60 for three.

A brilliant 129 run stand between captain Sophie Luff and wicketkeeper Nat Wraith put the game back in the balance.

But Dean had Wraith stumped before a flurry of wickets saw Storm bowled out for 256 off the final ball.