In a battle between two sides who have already been eliminated, it was London Spirit who took the honours at Lord’s, comfortably defeating Birmingham Phoenix by 32 runs with the great South African allrounder Marizanne Kapp playing the starring role.

Kapp was dominant across both innings, electrifying Spirit with the bat before cleaning up Jemima Spence in her opening salvo, bowling her first 15 for just 10 runs to suck the life out of the Phoenix’s chase.

Alongside Kapp, Spirit skipper Charlie Dean was the other standout with the ball, picking up the wickets of Davina Perrin and Ellyse Perry while conceding just nine from her opening 10 balls, with Perry perishing to a superb catch from Katie George on the midwicket boundary. And she nipped in with a third, removing Tammy Beaumont with the Phoenix needing 62 from 23. With that wicket any lingering hopes of an unlikely chase were finally extinguished.

Earlier in the piece, Spirit started sluggishly with the bat. Grace Harris went early again and though Amy Jones sparkled with a 30-ball 39, the Phoenix bowlers kept a lid on things, with Aussie legspinner Alana King outstanding with 2 for 18.

With the score at 75 for 3 off 68 balls, Phoenix were happy with their work but that was reckoning without Kapp, who was her usual calm self before she opened shoulders late on, depositing the ball over the ropes six times, four in succession off Alice Capsey.

Her compatriot Nadine de Klerk joined the fun, hitting England quick Lauren Filer over the ropes and enabling Spirit to end on a challenging 140 for 4, with 37 having come off the last ten.

It was too much for a misfiring Phoenix line-up. Emma Lamb, who made a 26-ball 36, has been impressive since coming into the side midway through the tournament but she played a lone hand as wickets fell around her. Phoenix finished their innings in a state of frustrating anticlimax, in keeping with the their campaign as a whole.

Kapp, the Meerkat Match Hero, said: “The atmosphere is so special here. There’s something about this ground and I’ve been blessed to play here for the last couple of years.

On the Spirit’s underwhelming campaign as a whole: “To be honest, we haven’t batted as well as we would have liked. Lord’s is probably the trickiest wicket to bat on in England and I feel like we were a little slow to learn and adjust to conditions. Today was probably the first time that we batted first and really worked out the conditions.”