Welsh Fire cruised to a comprehensive eight-wicket win over Birmingham Phoenix to keep their fading hopes of reaching The Hundred men’s knockout stages alive.
Defeat at Edgbaston would have ended their chances of making the top three but after restricting Phoenix to 138-9, they knocked off the runs with 11 balls to spare.
Opener Stephen Eskinazi made a quickfire 42 and Jonny Bairstow, moved down to three, came in and thumped 35 off 21 balls, while Steve Smith batted through the innings for an unbeaten 47 off 36 as Fire made light work of the chase.
Earlier, wickets fell regularly during a Phoenix innings that repeatedly threatened to ignite but never quite did so.
Jacob Bethell top-scored with 38 from 28 balls, while Chris Green took 3-27 for Fire and his fellow off-spinner Ben Kellaway claimed 2-10 on debut.
The result leaves both sides on eight points, still eight back of Northern Superchargers in third, with two games left to play, meaning qualification remains unlikely.
However, both Fire and Phoenix will be clinging to the fact that if they win their remaining games they could still reach the eliminator – albeit it would require other results to go their way.
