Today’s match in the Women’s Big Bash League saw Sydney Thunder hosting Perth Scorchers. The home side had been consistent in the wrong way, losing three out of three, while the visitors had been inconsistent. This post looks back at the match.

THE SCORCHERS INNINGS

Sydney Thunder won the toss and opted to bowl first. The first two overs were economical, but then Georgia Voll was entrusted with the third and Katie Mack hit the first three balls of the over for fours. By the end of their four over opening Power Play the Scorchers were 26-0, a modest tally in spite of Voll’s expensive over. The key reason for this was left arm spinner Samantha Bates, who bowled two of those four overs and conceded a mere eight runs. Katie Mack was in splendid form, while Beth Mooney hung in there. The first ball of the eighth over saw the 50 come up, and a strong finish to the first half of the innings saw the Scorchers go to drinks on 76-0 from 10 overs. The drinks break, as it quite often does, brought the wicket, Mooney falling immediately on the resumption. The young English left hander Freya Kemp came in at three and was briefly impressive before a run out ended her stay at the crease for 11 (6) to make it 90-2. Another Englishwoman, Paige Scholfield, followed Kemp to the crease, and hit her first ball for four, before being pinned LBW by her second and burning up a review in an attempt to overturn it. The great Kiwi veteran Sophie Devine was next and on this occasion failed to make it 98-4. With wickets tumbling the Scorchers delayed to Power Surge until overs 16 and 17. Samantha Bates, having already bowled two of her overs in the opening Power Play, now bowled her fourth and final over in what was both a Power Surge over and a death over. She did so superbly, and emerged with figures of 4-0-18-1, with three of those four overs bowled in the toughest periods of the innings. Scorchers just brought up the 150 before the end of their innings, the last ball of which saw the dismissal of Mack, who had batted on a different plane from most of her team mates, scoring 79 off 57 balls in all.

THE THUNDER REPLY

Although Sixers had very comfortably defended a smaller total than Scorchers’ 150 on this same ground a few days earlier there was still a suspicion that the Perth side had not done enough in their innings.

By the end of the opening Power Play that impression was reinforced as Thunder were 36-0 at that point, ten runs better than Scorchers had been. By the halfway stage Thunder had reached 80-1, only four runs better and one wicket worse than Scorchers. However, while Scorchers had struggled in the second half of their innings Thunder did not. At the 15 over stage it was 114-1, 37 needed off the last five overs with nine wickets standing, and now Phoebe Litchfield stepped on the gas for Thunder. No further wickets were taken, and it was Litchfield who ended proceedings by hitting the second ball of the 19th over for the only six of the match, a shot that took her to 50* (35), while at the other end Tahlia Wilson was 55* (44), with Georgia Voll having redeemed her poor bowling by contributing 43 from 31 balls at the top of the order. The only remaining question was Player of the Match. I regard the actual choice of Wilson as a clear-cut mistake – she scored at slower than the required rate, meaning that her team mates needed to do more than she was, which they managed easily enough. I would have been happy enough had it gone to Litchfield, whose late acceleration sealed the deal, but my own choice would have Bates for her bowling performance, which played a huge part in limiting the Scorchers to that 150 – her team mates conceded an average 8.25 from each of the 16 overs they bowlers, while she went for 18 from four, an ER of 4.50, and she bowled three of those four overs at tough stages of the innings. Had she matched the ER of her team mates, which would still have made it a good effort given when she bowled Scorchers would have had 165 to defend rather than 150, and those extra 15 runs may well have been enough.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…