Manchester Super Giants 149 for 8 (Walter 64, Rashid 2-17) beat Southern Brave 139 for 6 (Stubbs 53, Atkinson 2-19) by 10 runs
Manchester Super Giants held their nerve to see off any hopes Southern Brave may have harboured of scraping into the knockout stages and in so doing kept their own campaign very much alive going into its defining week.
Despite a stumble in the Super Giants innings which saw them slump from 119 for 0 from 63 balls to 149 for 8, they banked on having enough class in the form of pacemen Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson - and spin from Liam Dawson and their Kiwi overseas Michael Bracewell, playing his first game as a replacement for Aiden Markram - to suppress the Brave's misfiring batting unit, and so it ultimately proved.
Paul Walter, playing just his second game of this year's tournament, electrified the Super Giants innings with some monstrous hitting, clubbing six fours and four legside sixes to make a match-defining 64, with Tim Seifert similarly dismissive at the other end, taking 34 balls for his 55 before a direct hit from Moeen Ali halted him in full flow.
Moeen and Adil Rashid then rolled back the years to apply the chokehold in the final third, conceding just 38 runs between them, as the Super Giants innings hit the wall. The equation for the home team was simple: 150 to stay in the tournament.
With everything at stake, the run-chase played out on a knife-edge. Despite a sluggish start by Jamie Smith, who laboured to 26 from 25 balls, with a quarter of the innings remaining the Brave were still in the fight, with the overseas pair of Tristan Stubbs and Marcus Stoinis trading sixes to leave 56 needed from 25.
An exquisite slower ball from Tongue then induced the false shot from Stoinis, bringing the great finisher David Miller to the crease and the South African pair kept swinging, Stubbs careening to an explosive fifty from 37 balls to leave the Brave needing 40 from 12 balls.
But when Miller fell to a brilliant tumbling catch from Leus du Plooy, the Brave's race was all but run. Some spirited hitting from Nikhil Chaudhary kept the crowd believing and with five balls remaining the Brave were within touching distance, needing 19, but Atkinson was ultimately too good, landing blockhole balls at will to silence the home crowd and keep the Super Giants rolling on.
They started the tournament poorly, but will now play SunRisers Leeds on Tuesday knowing that a win - and ideally a commanding one - will put them in the prime slot to progress.
Meerkat Match Hero Paul Walter said: "We're obviously delighted to get the result and we roll on to the last game. I wouldn't say it was my finest knock today, a bit agricultural! But it's been a low-scoring ground this year so I just wanted to get off to a flier and keep going."
On making just his second appearance of the tournament: "You just want to come in and make an impact. I knew when I came in that we needed to win all three to give ourselves a chance of qualifying, and I just wanted to do what I can to help the side. I thought 150 at halfway was still a good score even if we were a bit disappointed at the way we went at the back-end there, and I thought the boys bowled brilliantly to defend it. It's a big game in a few days' time, so fingers crossed."
