Birmingham Phoenix beat Welsh Fire by seven wickets at Edgbaston on 1 August 2026, notching their 15th-match win in The Hundred Men's Competition 2026 — and they did it the hard way, losing two batters to run-outs along the route.

Laurie Evans and Rehan Ahmed both fell to run-outs during Phoenix's chase, a stroke of misfortune that could have derailed any innings in this 100-ball-per-side format (BBC Sport). In a competition where every delivery carries weight and partnerships are measured in balls rather than overs, losing two wickets to calling mishaps rather than good bowling stings twice over.

The Hundred, for the uninitiated, compresses cricket into 100 deliveries per side — each team bats through ten balls at a time rather than the traditional six-ball over. A run-out, where a fielder breaks the stumps with the ball while a batter is mid-pitch, is always untidy. Two in one innings is the sort of thing a coach clips for a video review session.

Despite those self-inflicted wounds, Phoenix had enough in the tank to overhaul Fire's total and win by seven wickets, keeping the spare batters in the pavilion unused. It was a clinical finish to a chase that threatened to wobble (BBC Sport).

The Edgbaston crowd had already been treated to a Phoenix victory earlier in the day. Birmingham Phoenix Women also beat Welsh Fire Women by seven wickets in their Hundred fixture, rounding off a clean sweep for the home side across both matches (BBC Sport).

For Welsh Fire, the trip to Birmingham yielded nothing. Two matches, two defeats, both by the same seven-wicket margin — a scoreline that suggests Phoenix were comfortably ahead in both contests rather than scraping over the line.

The broader picture for The Hundred's 2026 men's edition is still taking shape, with this fixture the 15th in the competition schedule (ESPNcricinfo). Early-season results carry weight: the eight-team league feeds directly into the knockout stage, and every win tightens the grip on a top-three finish.

What makes this result stand out is its resilience. Most teams that lose two batters to run-outs in a short-format chase tighten up — the calling gets hesitant, the dug-out grows tense. Phoenix kept their nerve, and the scorecard reflects a side that trusted the remaining batters to close the job.