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Perry's performance gives Lightning hope

Australia star allrounder helps Loughborough breakthrough for first win

Ellyse Perry produced a Player of the Match performance to keep Loughborough's slim finals hopes alive after defeating Lancashire Thunder by 51 runs on Sunday.

Having lost their first three games of the Super League 2017, Perry's unbeaten 78 from 57 balls with the bat and 2-9 with the ball helped the Lightning break their duck and stay alive in the competition.

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Perry admitted that she hasn't been pleased with her tournament to date and that the team needed to turn things around very quickly.

"It was really nice for the team more than anything to come out and play the way we did, everyone just really enjoyed it today," said Perry.

"We had a tough couple of games coming into this and it showed a lot about the personnel and the character in the team that we wanted to turn it around today.

"I felt pretty responsible for the results in the last couple of games and haven't taken enough ownership when I went in to bat. I was pleased to do that today. Everyone was a part of it today and everyone really contributed."

Loughborough currently sit in fifth position with five points from their four games ahead of their final group game against Surrey on Saturday and they will need results to go their way if they are to make the finals on September 1.

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Meanwhile, another New Zealander has reached three figures in the Super League a week after Suzie Bates became the first player to do so.

Bates' White Ferns opening partner Rachel Priest was the match-winner this time, smashing an unbeaten 106 off 65 balls as her Western Storm thumped the Yorkshire Diamonds by 10 wickets in York.

The home side never looked like defending their total of 7-160, which included 41 off 21 balls from big-hitting White Ferns allrounder Sophie Devine.

Priest, who had scored three runs in her first two knocks for the Storm, thrashed 14 fours and three sixes as she and veteran England international Heather Knight (48 not out off 38 balls) reached 0-161 in 17 overs.

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Elsewhere, New Zealand captain Bates was at it again, scoring an unbeaten fifty for Southern Vipers in a four-run loss to Surrey Stars in Southampton.

The Stars reached 8-127 and the Vipers were 7-100 off 16.2 overs when rain arrived, a score deemed not quite good enough under the Duckworth-Lewis method.

Bates was holding the chase together in a 41-ball knock which continued a dream start to the season.

She is the Twenty20 league's leading run-scorer with 216 from three innings for the defending champions and is still yet to be dismissed.