A look at Perth Scorchers v Sydney Sixers in WBBL11 and a photo gallery.
The 11th edition of the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) is now under way. Today there was live commentary on game three, between Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers at the WACA. This post looks back at the match.
THE SCORCHERS INNINGS
Perth Scorchers won the toss and chose to bat. They started reasonably well, being 27-1 after four overs, and 37-1 after 4.3 overs. The fourth ball of that over saw the end of Beth Mooney just as she was starting to look really dangerous. From that point the game changed, as Sixers applied considerable pressure. First there was a period of 2.3 overs immediately after the dismissal in which a mere seven runs were scored, and then came catastrophe for the Scorchers. First Sophie Devine suffered a barely credible dismissal, officially stumped by Emma Manix-Geeves off Ash Gardner, when a) the ball hit the stumps by way of the keeper rather than due to any good work on her part and b) the wicket keeper gloved the stumps herself without possession of the ball, but the ball had hit the stumps before her gloves did. That eventually brought Paige Scholfield to the crease, she immediately hit her first ball straight back to Gardner to make it 44-4. Freya Kemp now came in, and in company with Mikayala Hinkley seemed to be steadying the ship. Then Hinkley, who had made her to 31, was well caught by Coimhe Bray off Ellyse Perry (a transgenerational dismissal, Perry being 35 and Bray 16) to make it 83-5, which became 83-6 when DRS confirmed that Chloe Ainsworth’s pad was indeed in front of the stumps when her first ball thumped into it. Five balls later Freya Kemp became the third player dismissed with the score on 83 when Gardner bowled her for 16 with a peach of a yorker. That left Lilly Mills and Alana King together at the crease. Mills batted busily and effectively for a time, until Gardner struck yet again. First Mills was caught behind for 13, and then after Amy Edgar had scored a single off the next ball Alana King fell to a return catch for 5 to make it 102-9 and give Gardner her fifth wicket of the innings. The over ended without further incident, but Gardner, captaining the Sixers for the first tine, had recorded figures of 4-0-15-5, the best ever for the Sydney Sixers. Edgar and number 11 Ebony Hoskin did manage to take the Scorchers innings into the final over, before a second fine catch of the innings by Bray accounted for Edgar to make it 109 all out. On this occasion Bray’s seamers were surplus to requirement, but she had been worth her place purely as a fielder.
THE SIXERS INNINGS
A total of 109 was miles short of anything remotely defensible on a good surface (which this was), and an upset never looked likely. Sixers opening pair of Ellyse Perry and Sophia Dunkley made an easy task look quite ridiculously so. It took the pair a mere 12.5 overs to take their side to a ten wicket victory. Dunkley scored 61 not out from 40 balls with five sixes and four fours and Perry had 57 not out from 37 balls with nine fours. It remained only for Gardner, skipper and record breaking bowler for the Sixers, to be named Player of the Match as she duly was.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
A ‘waning gibbous’ moon in the morning sky.A squirrel tackles a large tree.looking down from in the branches.the lookout squirrel
An account of the extraordinary match between Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers in the WBBL, which was tied after 20 overs per side, and still tied after a Super Over. Also two photo galleries, one devoted to two recent auction purchases and located between the match and the super over, and one my usual sign off gallery.
Early yesterday morning UK time the Perth Scorchers took on the Sydney Sixers at Hobart, supposedly a warm=up act for the match between the local Hobart Hurricanes and the Melbourne Renegades. I was in the position of being able to listen to the whole of the first match and the early stages of the second. The match I got to hear the whole of was one of the most remarkable it has been my privilege to follow, and this post looks back at it.
THE FIRST INNINGS
The Scorchers batted first, and at 95-1, with Brooke Halliday and Beth Mooney both into the 40s they looked set for a fine score. However, they failed to take the two over Power Surge while this pair were in residence, and when both fell in quick succession and it was getting late in the innings they ended up taking the Surge with two new batters at the crease, albeit one of them was Sophie Devine, one of the biggest hitters in the women’s game.
The first over of the Power Surge and the 15th of the innings was bowled by off spinner Ashleigh Gardner, and it was a superb over. With the second ball of it she clean bowled Mikayla Hinkley, and with the final ball of it she did the same to Indian star Dayalan Hemalatha. She also conceded only three runs in the over, putting the gloss on a great bowling performance, turning an already very good 3-0-18-2 into a sensational 4-0-21-4. Scorchers were five down, and although Devine and Carly Leeson added eight runs to the score before the next wicket fell both were out very close together and Scorchers were 114-7. The skids were now well and truly under the Scorchers innings, and they ended up failing to bat the full 20 overs, being all out for 126 after 19.2 overs. The last nine wickets had crashed for just 31 runs, and at the halfway stage the Sixers would have been heavy favourites.
THE REPLY
Sixers started steadily, with the general reckoning being that Scorchers had to take ten wickets to avoid losing. Elsa Hunter, a 19 year old who already has considerable international experience, having made her debut for Malaysia Women as a 13 year old, opened the innings with Ellyse Perry, and struggled to score. Perry hit form from the get go and looked a class apart from every other batter in this match. Hunter fell for an 18 ball 9, caught by Hemalatha off the leg spin of Alana King. Amelia Kerr managed just a single before a catch by Ebony Hoskin off Chloe Ainsworth disposed of her. Ashleigh Gardner was the first Sixers player other than Perry to strike at above 100, scoring 17 off 15 balls and helping the third wicket to add 32 runs. Hollie Armitage, in at number five, found run scoring hard but gave Perry good support, although the required rate crept up, hitting eight an over with five overs left in the innings. The 16th and 17th overs both yielded this exact number of runs. In the 18th over Alana King had Perry caught by Ainsworth, and then Maitlan Brown, regarded more as bowler than a batter, but not having bowled at all this tournament, was pinned LBW first ball. When Scottish wicket keeper Sarah Bryce was caught by Ainsworth off Leeson the Scorchers would have been feeling confident. Mathilda Carmichael joined Hollie Armitage, and at the end of the 19th over the score was 115-6, 12 needed off the final over.
There followed one of the most extraordinary six ball sequences I have ever seen. There are many ways to handle a chase of two runs per ball in the last over, but few if any other batters would have done what Mathilda Carmichael did. She ran twos of each of the first five balls of the over. Off the sixth she got through for one, but was well short coming back for the second as Mooney collected King’s throw and took the bails off to execute the run out. Sixers thus ended on 126-7, exactly level with Scorchers 126 all out. In the WBBL when scores are level at the end of a match a Super Over is played. Each side nominates one bowler to bowl their over and three players who will bat (two out constitutes all out in a super over). In the WBBL specifically if a Super Over is tied that is then the end of the matter, and the points are split. Before I cover the Super Over I have decided to break things up a little…
GALLERY ONE: TWO AUCTION LOTS
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week James and Sons had their November auction. On Tuesday I had no bids in, but on Wednesday I had put in advance bids on two lots, numbers 438 and 447. I was not able to follow the auction live, as while it was on I was involved in an online session (via Teams) on safeguarding in my capacity as WNAG secretary. As it happened my two modest bids were both successful, and these two lots form my first picture gallery of this post…
The first seven images are the gallery I produced for potential bidders to see – while I did not have time to image the lot in full detail I had to to go into some detail given that I was considering bidding myself.The lot on display in my kitchen – as you will see from the rest of the gallery I had fun photographing this and did some considerable rearranging.Bernera is part of the Outer Hebrides.Davaar Island is located just of the coast from Campbelltown, near the Mull of Kintyre.Just a four image gallery for the auction this time as this was a much smaller lot.Amalgamation one, adding a railway stamp I already had to this sheet.Amlgamation 2a, some foreign railway stamps to go on the reverse side.Amalgamation 2b, adding one further foreign railway stamp to that side. The new amalgamated lot is in a display folder with a number of other items including most of lot 438.
THE SUPER OVER
Sixers having batted second in the match had to bat first in the Super Over. Scorchers surprised many people by selecting Amy Edgar to bowl, while Sixers to no great surprise opted for Perry and Gardner as their first two batters. Alana King had been their best bowler in the match, and many would have expected her to bowl the super over. Edgar bowled a wide, and 14 came off the bat in the over, 12 to Perry and 2 to Gardner. Sixers thus scored 15-0 from their Super Over.
Sophie Devine was obviously going to bat for the Scorchers, and the question was who else they would use. In the event they went for the left handed Beth Mooney, and Mikayla Hinkley was their third batter. Unsurprisingly after her efforts earlier in the day Gardner was Sixers choice to bowl the over. Devine got a single off the first ball, then Mooney was out to the second and Sixers looked favourite. Hinkley scored two off the third ball, meaning that 13 were needed off the final three balls, or 12 to tie. Hinkley had now found her range, and struck the fourth and fifth balls for fours to reduce the ask to five off one ball or four to tie. Gardner did her best, but Hinkley hit a third successive four to level the scores, and split the points. I have only previously followed one match in which the teams ended tied after a super over, and on that occasion a tie-splitting procedure was in place, as the side who benefitted from that procedure, England, have never been allowed to forget by fans of certain other sides. Scorchers now have nine points and sit fourth on their own, three points behind Brisbane Heat and Melbourne Renegades, with Sydney Thunder a point ahead after their derby against the Sixers at Drummoyne was washed out leading to a split of the points there. Sixers, on eight points are in sixth, behind Hobart Hurricanes on net run rate, and ahead of Adelaide Strikers and Melbourne Stars. A full scorecard of both match and super over can been seen by clicking here.
PHOTOGRAPHS
These photos come from Wednesday afternoon (cold), Thursday (brutally cold) and today (bright and sunny, and less cold than either previous day, reaching the giddy heights of four degrees Celsius (yesterday was below freezing the whole way through, and as low as minus four at one point)…
aspiblog 