Adil Rashid took three wickets in five balls to drag Southern Brave back into their Hundred match against Sunrisers Leeds at Headingley on 25 July 2026.

Sunrisers Leeds were cruising at 111 for 0. Then Rashid stepped up — and the scoreline lurched to 112 for 3. Three batters gone in the space of five deliveries, the openers' hard work undone in a spell that lasted barely a couple of minutes.

The Hundred, for the uninitiated, is cricket's shortest and fastest format: 100 balls per innings, each delivery arriving in rapid-fire succession with a countdown clock on screen. A single over is either five or ten balls depending on the competition stage, and momentum can swing wildly in the time it takes to send a text. Rashid's burst is exactly the sort of passage the format was designed to produce — compact, brutal, and impossible to look away from.

Rashid, a leg-spinner — a bowler who spins the ball away from a right-handed batter using wrist rotation rather than finger flick — was acquired by Southern Brave through The Hundred's auction process, where teams place opening bids to secure players. He has long been regarded as one of England's premier slow bowlers, and at Headingley he showed precisely why the Brave moved to bring him in.

What makes the spell remarkable is the starting point. A stand of 111 without loss means the openers have done virtually everything right — they have seen off the new ball, found their timing, and settled into a rhythm. To break that partnership once is a bowler's job. To take three wickets in five balls is to rip up the script entirely.

Leg-spin is a high-risk, high-reward art. The wrist imparts more revolutions than finger spin, generating greater turn and more dip — the ball seems to hang in the air a beat longer than physics should allow. When it lands well, batters are left guessing. When it does not, it can disappear to the boundary. On this occasion, Rashid's control was total.

The match situation gave his wickets maximum weight. With the openers set and the asking rate manageable, Leeds would have backed themselves to close out the chase comfortably. Instead, the innings suddenly had two new batters at the crease — walking in cold, facing a spinner in full flow, and with the scoreboard pressure mounting.

For Southern Brave, the spell could prove a season-defining moment. In a tournament as short as The Hundred, where every result carries heavy weight in the league table, a single burst of brilliance like this can be the difference between a play-off spot and an early exit.

For the neutral, it was a reminder of why wrist-spin has endured across every era and format of the sport. The fastest batters, the flattest pitches, the briefest games — none of it matters when a leg-spinner finds their length. Five balls, three wickets, and a match turned on its head.