Quinton de Kock’s unbeaten 72 takes Southern Brave into second place in the men’s Hundred table after Ageas Bowl win against Northern Superchargers

The Brave’s five-wicket wicket win, their third success of the season, took them to second placeand was secured with five balls to spare with South African batsman de Kock unbeaten on 72 alongside Chris Jordan who was 10 not out and hit the winning boundary.

After restricting the Superchargers to an under-par 128-6, on a sluggish surface in damp and cold conditions the Brave looked to be cruising to victory at 101-2, writes IAIN McCULLOUGH.

However, spinners Adil Rashid and Adam Lyth grabbed four wickets to almost wrestle the initiative back towards the visitors.

Brave started well in the response to the visitors’ total as Ireland international Paul Stirling thumped 20 from 12 deliveries before being caught and bowled by Brydon Carse.

Brave skipper James Vince then departed for eight after being bowled by a magnificent Rashid googly but Alex Davies and de Kock put on 51 for the third wicket to put their side in sight of victory.

But the admirable Rashid took his second wicket when Davies was stumped by John Simpson for 15 before Lyth struck twice in quick succession with his off-spin to bowl Ross Whitely and New Zealand all-rounder Colin de Grandhomme to check the home side’s progress.

The Superchargers won the toss and elected to bat but got off to the worst possible start when former England opener Lyth was bowled by the first ball of the match by George Garton.

Garton produced a cracking in-swinging yorker that rearranged the Yorkshireman’s stumps around his pads much to the delight of the home crowd.

Big-hitting Australian Chris Lynn - once of Gosport Borough - crashed four boundaries for his 22 before falling to Jordan’s first ballwith Davies taking a superb catch after coming in off the boundary to dive full-length.

Danny Briggs then took the crucial wicket of talismanic skipper David Willey, who had looked in good touch for his 24 off 18 deliveries as the visitors slipped to 63-3 after 48 balls.

The visitors quickly slumped to 76-5 after 64 balls as in-form Harry Brook and Simpson perished cheaply.

Brook fell for 14 when he smashed Jake Linton down the throat of Jordan, who took a simple catch, with Simpson playing an awful reverse sweep shot from a poor delivery by Briggs to fall for just three.

The Brave bowlers continued to keep the visitors in check with Tymal Mills in particular impressing, conceding just one boundary from his 20 balls to finish with figures of 1-17 and taking the wicket of Ben Raine (18).

Dane Vilas was unbeaten with 35 for the Superchargers, who finished their innings on 128-6 - a total always looked under-par.

Briggs said: ‘It was a good win, we needed it. It's the back end of the comp now and it's going to get pretty big so it was important to get a win. Although it got a little bit tight there towards the end, it was nice to get on the right side of that.

‘Our bowling unit has done well for the last two games and we are doing fairly well to keep scores down. We had to on that wicket as it deteriorated quite quickly.

‘Quinny (de Kock) is a class act, we have seen him do that kind of thing before in glimpses and it was nice that at the end there when the wicket got difficult he showed his class and got us over the line.’

Brave return to Ageas Bowl action on Wednesday against the Welsh Fire.