Issy Wong needed only one delivery to make her mark. Bowling for Southern Brave against Sunrisers Leeds in the women's Hundred, she dismissed Jess Jonassen with her very first ball — the kind of opening that stops a dressing room mid-conversation.

Wong went on to finish with 3 wickets for 15 runs as Southern Brave restricted Sunrisers Leeds to 116 in the fifth match of The Hundred Women's Competition 2026, played at Leeds (BBC Sport). The BBC Sport video of the performance carried the headline "'What a ball!' — Wonderful Wong gets three for the Southern Brave."

For the uninitiated, the Hundred is cricket's shortest-format competition: each side faces 100 deliveries (slightly fewer than a T20 innings), and the compressed structure means every wicket carries outsized weight. A bowler who removes a top-order batter inside the first ten balls has already tilted the arithmetic hard in her team's favour.

Wong's first-ball removal of Jonassen — an experienced Australian international — did exactly that. It gave Brave early control of an innings Sunrisers Leeds never truly accelerated, stalling at 116 from their hundred balls.

The performance carries a subplot worth noting. Wong was signed by Southern Brave for £130,000 at the Women's Hundred 2026 auction in March, where Brave also invested £140,000 in Lauren Bell to build a pace-bowling partnership (ESPNcricinfo). Sunrisers Leeds, meanwhile, committed £190,000 to Danielle Gibson and brought in Annabel Sutherland at the same auction — spending heavily on all-round quality that could not quite deliver on this occasion.

A full scorecard of the match is available on ESPNcricinfo, confirming Wong's opening-wicket strike and her three-wicket haul.

What stands out is the immediacy of Wong's impact. A first-ball wicket in any format is rare; in the Hundred, where momentum shifts inside a handful of deliveries, it borders on decisive. Brave's investment in their pace attack — Wong and Bell commanding a combined £270,000 — looked well spent on this evidence, with Wong alone dismantling the Sunrisers Leeds top order and capping the innings at a total that gave her batters a chasable target.

The result gives Southern Brave an early foothold in the 2026 women's competition, while Sunrisers Leeds are left to regroup after an innings that promised more than 116 could deliver.