Southern Brave held their nerve — and found an unlikely hero — to claim their first win of The Hundred's 2026 season, beating Birmingham Phoenix by 12 runs at the Utilita Bowl on Friday 24 July.

Put into bat, Brave never quite settled. No partnership passed 33 runs, and a middle-order wobble of four wickets for 12 runs turned a promising platform into a scramble. Marcus Stoinis top-scored with 34 from 26 balls, and useful cameos from Tom Abell (22), David Miller (24) and Ben McKinney (18) pushed the total to 128-8 from 100 balls — a modest score in The Hundred, where each side faces 100 deliveries and batters attack in five-ball sets.

Rehan Ahmed, retained by Phoenix for £250,000 this season, was the pick of the visiting bowlers with 3-25, exploiting a surface that rewarded variation.

Phoenix's chase hinged on Will Smeed, who made 35 from 28 before becoming Wood's first scalp. But the defining passage came in the final set. Phoenix needed 14 runs from five balls — gettable in this format, where a single set can yield 15 or more.

Wood had other ideas. He dismissed Ben Dwarshuis and Scott Currie, both caught, off the first two balls. Then Adil Rashid, the Brave captain, ran out Saqib Mahmood with a direct hit on the third. Three wickets, three balls, the chase extinguished.

Wood finished with 3-24, ably supported by Stoinis (2-16) and Rashid (1-18). Jofra Archer, bowling in front of his home crowd, returned 1-21.

The win lifts Brave off the bottom of the table into seventh place on net run-rate — the tiebreaker that ranks teams level on points. For Phoenix, a second close defeat raises familiar questions about finishing chases under pressure.

The Hundred's 2026 season runs from 21 July to 16 August, with both men's and women's competitions running side by side. Brave, slow starters this year, now have momentum and a result built on bowling depth rather than batting fireworks.