Match overview

Southern Brave beat Welsh Fire by 4 runs at The Rose Bowl on 28 August 2025, in one of the tighter finishes of this year's Hundred. Brave batted first and posted 167/7, losing wickets in clusters but scoring 90 runs in the middle phase to build a defendable total. Welsh Fire gave themselves a chance with 44 runs in the final phase of their innings, but having stumbled to 31/3 in the powerplay, they were always chasing the game. C Overton took the Player of the Match award as Brave held their nerve.

The match followed a pattern familiar to anyone who has watched this fixture: close, decided in the finer margins, and ending with Brave on the right side of the result. They have now won 8 of their 10 meetings with Welsh Fire, including both of the matches decided by fewer than 5 runs. Welsh Fire's lone victory in this rivalry feels increasingly distant.

Both sides came in having won just twice in their last five matches. For Brave, this win. Their second against Fire in 2025. At least ends a run of four consecutive defeats. Fire, meanwhile, drop to 2 wins from their last five as well.

Venue and conditions

The Rose Bowl has hosted 148 matches in its warehouse of records, producing an average first-innings score of 186 and an average second-innings score of 161. Welsh Fire's decision to field after winning the toss placed them in the structurally harder position: chases succeed here only 47 per cent of the time. Teams winning the toss choose to field on 52 per cent of occasions, which suggests the conventional wisdom still leans that way, but the numbers don't fully support it.

The powerplay context matters here. The ground's average powerplay contribution is 43 runs. Brave scored 37 in theirs, which was below average, but Fire managed just 31 before losing 3 wickets. That 6-run deficit in the powerplay, against a lower scoring Brave side, proved decisive. Both teams performed similarly in the middle overs. 90 runs for Brave, 88 for Fire. So the match turned on those first 25 balls.

Death bowling tends to be expensive at The Rose Bowl, with an average of 36 runs in the final phase. Welsh Fire exceeded that with 44, showing they can finish hard, but they left themselves too much to do.

How to watch

The Hundred is broadcast live in the UK on Sky Sports Cricket, with streaming available through Sky Go and NOW TV for subscribers. The BBC holds a free-to-air arrangement for selected fixtures, with those matches available on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. Check the BBC Sport website for their broadcast schedule across the competition.

For highlights and match replays, both the Sky Sports and BBC Sport apps carry same-day content.

Recent form

Southern Brave arrive at this result on the back of a difficult run: four defeats in their previous five matches, including losses to London Spirit, Oval Invincibles, Trent Rockets, and Northern Superchargers. Their only win in that stretch was this fixture against Welsh Fire earlier in 2025. A second win over Fire gives them something to build on, but their form elsewhere in the competition has been inconsistent.

Welsh Fire's recent record tells a similar story. They won back-to-back matches against Birmingham Phoenix and Manchester Originals to show they can compete, but they have lost to Trent Rockets, Oval Invincibles, and now Southern Brave twice in 2025. Their powerplay frailty is a recurring thread: losing 3 wickets inside the opening phase of a chase, as they did here, has undermined several of their run-chases this season. Until that issue is addressed, they will continue to leave themselves with too much to do in the later overs.