Why Southern Brave had nobody left to bowl the over that decided the match

Ollie Pope needed two runs from one ball. The bowler running in was not Southern Brave's fastest option, and it was not their frontline overseas spinner either. It was Nikhil Chaudhary, an all-rounder who had bowled only fifteen of his twenty allowed balls all night. Pope sliced him away through backward point, MI London scrambled back for two, and a last-ball finish at the Rose Bowl was settled.

The reason Chaudhary was the one holding the ball has nothing to do with form or nerve. It comes down to a counting rule that applies only in The Hundred, and by the time the final five balls arrived, Southern Brave's captain had almost nobody else left to turn to.

What happened at the Rose Bowl

Southern Brave batted first on 27 July 2026 and were held to 129 for 9 from their 100 balls. Jamie Smith made 49 off 26 with six fours and two sixes, and Tristan Stubbs added 38 off 31, but nobody else in the innings passed 13. Trent Boult took 2 for 15 and Sam Curran 2 for 22 for MI London, and Brave lost their last three wickets for a single run in the closing stages.

MI London's reply started badly. James Vince and Nicholas Pooran were both out to Marcus Stoinis inside the first four balls, leaving them 17 for 2. Will Jacks and captain Sam Curran rebuilt the innings with a stand of 65, and Jacks went on to 54 off 41. Two run outs then unsettled the chase in the closing stages, Sherfane Rutherford at 115 for 5 and Rashid Khan at 127 for 7, leaving MI London needing six runs from the final five balls with last man Trent Boult at the crease alongside Pope.

The bowler running in for that final set was Chaudhary.

The rule that put Chaudhary on the ball

The Hundred does not use six-ball overs. An over here is five balls, and no bowler is allowed to send down more than four of them, a flat twenty balls, in a single innings. That comes from the ECB's own playing conditions for the competition rather than the Laws of cricket in general. A standard T20 over is six balls, and the same four-over cap there works out at twenty-four deliveries per bowler. The Hundred's version is a smaller number, and because ends only change every ten balls rather than after every over, a captain can split a bowler's twenty across several separate spells instead of four fixed blocks.

The effect on a captain's options at the death is direct. Once a bowler has sent down their twentieth ball, they cannot bowl again in that innings, whatever the situation demands. Southern Brave's four main options, Jofra Archer, Marcus Stoinis, Adil Rashid and captain Chris Jordan himself, had each already used all twenty of theirs by the time MI London needed six from the last five balls.

Why Southern Brave ran out of better choices

Only two Brave bowlers had anything left in the bank. Luke Wood had bowled a single five-ball set all night, conceding nine runs from it, and Nikhil Chaudhary had fifteen of his twenty gone, at a cost of 21 runs from three sets. Jordan turned to the leg-spinner.

Jordan's own bowling had been the most expensive of the six, 34 runs from his allocation without taking a wicket, and Adil Rashid had gone for 26 from his twenty balls too. Southern Brave's cheapest bowler by some distance was Stoinis, three wickets for 17, but his twenty balls were used up well before the finish. A captain working within a twenty-ball limit, rather than the six-ball-over rhythm most viewers grew up watching, has to decide much earlier in the innings which spells to spend and which to save. Get that sequencing wrong, and whoever is left bowling at the end is simply whoever still has deliveries in hand, not necessarily the bowler the situation calls for.

FAQ

Why does The Hundred count overs in fives instead of sixes?

The ECB built the format around a round total, one hundred balls a side, and five-ball overs fit neatly into that count. Twenty overs of five is exactly one hundred, whereas twenty overs of six would be one hundred and twenty, the total used in a normal T20 innings.

How many balls can one bowler send down in The Hundred?

Twenty, spread across up to four visits of five or ten balls apiece. A bowler can be brought back several times in an innings as long as the running total does not pass twenty and no single spell runs longer than two five-ball overs, ten balls, in a row.

Could Southern Brave have used Luke Wood instead of Chaudhary for the last over?

Yes. Wood had fifteen balls of his allocation still unused, more than anyone else in the side, but Jordan preferred the leg-spinner for the conditions on the night. Wood had also been expensive in his one set earlier, nine runs from five balls, which likely shaped that decision.

Does a similar ball limit apply in ODIs or Test cricket?

ODIs cap a bowler at ten six-ball overs, sixty balls, out of the fifty-over innings. Tests set no limit at all, so a captain can bowl a strike bowler for as long as fitness and the match situation allow.

Next time you are watching The Hundred reach its final over, try the same arithmetic Jordan had to work through that night. Add up how many balls the frontline bowlers have already sent down, and check who still has an over in hand. In The Hundred that number to watch is twenty. Whoever is short of it by the death did not choose to bowl the biggest over of the match. They were simply the only one left who could.