LON­DON – Off-spin­ning all-rounder Sunil Nar­ine shone with the ball but failed with the bat but his Oval In­vin­ci­bles still did enough to take down Dwayne Bra­vo’s North­ern Su­per­charg­ers by three wick­ets in a tight fin­ish at the Oval.

The 34-year-old, who has not rep­re­sent­ed West In­dies in three years, snatched three for 11 in a bril­liant 20-ball spell to re­strict Su­per­charg­ers to 157 for sev­en from their 100 de­liv­er­ies on Thurs­day.

Open­er Adam Lyth top-scored with 79 from 33 de­liv­er­ies but Bra­vo had no such luck, suf­fer­ing the in­dig­ni­ty of a first-ball ‘duck’.

In re­ply, In­vin­ci­bles were 21 for three be­fore Sam Cur­ran blast­ed 60 from 39 balls and wick­et­keep­er Jor­dan Cox, 48 from 29 balls, to en­gi­neer a re­cov­ery and put their side over the line with three balls to spare.

The vic­to­ry was the sec­ond on the trot for In­vin­ci­bles af­ter an open­ing de­feat while Su­per­charg­ers have now lost two on the trot fol­low­ing vic­to­ry in their first game.

Sent in, Su­per­charg­ers were pro­pelled by Lyth’s fire­works, the left-han­der strik­ing three fours and eight six­es in post­ing 45 for the first wick­et with cap­tain Faf du Plessis (9) and 41 for the sec­ond wick­et with Michael Pep­per (16).

Nar­ine pulled things back for In­vin­ci­bles, knock­ing over Pep­per and Adam Hose (13) be­fore hit­ting South African all-rounder David Wiese in front for a first-ball ‘duck’.

The left-hand­ed Nar­ine was then one of three wick­ets to tum­ble cheap­ly be­fore Cur­ran led the fight­back in an in­nings com­pris­ing two fours and five six­es.

More im­por­tant­ly, he added 67 for the fourth wick­et with Cox who lashed eight fours, and a fur­ther 42 for the fifth wick­et with Hilton Cartwright (5), be­fore broth­er Tom Cur­ran lashed a sev­en-ball un­beat­en 18 with two six­es to seal the re­sult.

CMC