Carey and Sutherland are Northern lights in victory cruise

Northern Superchargers secured their first Women's Hundred title at Lord's yesterday after defeating Southern Brave by seven wickets, thanks to an unbeaten 35 off 25 balls from Nicola Carey.

- Raf Nicholson

Carey, who was drafted into the tournament partway through as an injury replacement for Georgia Wareham, described the past two weeks as a "whirlwind". "It's pretty wild," the Australian said.

"A couple of weeks ago I was back home in Tasmania doing a cold pre-season. You get a message one night, a day and a half later you're on a plane, and then a day and a half later you're on the field."

The final was a rematch of the 2023 game which Brave won, while this season the Southampton-based side had enjoyed a faultless procession to the final, winning all eight of their group-stage matches. But Brave faltered at the last after being put in to bat by a Superchargers side high on confidence following their 42-run hammering of London Spirit in the eliminator on Saturday.

Kate Cross quickly found herself on a hat-trick, Sophie Devine and Freya Kemp both holed out in the 20s, and Brave's captain Georgia Adams was run out after hitting the ball straight back to the bowler Cross and dashing out of her ground. Brave put just 115 runs on the board.