Renegades Rampant

An account of todays match in the men’s Big Bash League, a pungent comment re England’s chosen XI for Adelaide tomorrow and a photo gallery.

The Women’s Big Bash League 11th edition finished on Saturday, and the 15th edition of the men’s tournament started yesterday. Today Melbourne Renegades faced Brisbane Heat in a night match in Geelong. This post looks back at that match.

RENEGADES RUNFEST

Things initially did not look overly bright for Renegades, with only Tim Seifert of the early batters looking good. Josh Brown managed 15 (13), which looked positively explosive compared to number three Mohammad Rizwan’s 3 (10). Jake Fraser-McGurk had just started to look like he might provide Seifert some decent support when he suffered a stupid dismissal, walking across his stumps against seamer Jack Wildermuth, missing and being bowled. This attempt to open up the leg side was particularly ill-judged given that Heat had stocked that side with plenty of fielders. Oliver Peake, 19 years old, came in at number five, and batted magnificently. He and Seifert put on 121 together in precisely nine overs (9.3 to 18.3) of the innings, Seifert reaching three figures. Wildermuth got them both in the space of three balls, 203-3 becoming 204-5. Shaheen Shah Afridi had a nightmare with the ball, which ended in bizarre fashion, when he was ordered away from the bowling crease after producing two dangerously high full tosses in a single over, the 18th over of the innings. His figures when his spell was compulsorily halted were 2.4.-0-43-0. Nathan McSweeney completed that 18th over. The 20th over was bowled by Xavier Bartlett, and in the circumstances he did well to only concede a further eight.

THE HEAT RESPONSE

At no stage were Heat close to being up with the rate, and as can happen in such circumstances that required rate climbed alarmingly in the second half of their innings. Only a late flourish between youngster Hugh Weibgen and veteran Jimmy Peirson, which produced 78 runs from 5.5 overs enabled them to keep the margin respectable. There was time in the dying embers of the game for Afridi to add a duck with the bat to his disaster class with the ball. Afridi’s dismissal, clean bowled by Gurinder Singh Sandhu, left Heat needing 17 from one ball, and they managed two off that final ball. Melbourne Renegades had won by 14 runs. Their best bowler on the day was Will Sutherland who took 3-33 from his four overs, while Jason Behrendorff had 2-34 from his four and Sandhu 2-35 from his four.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Tomorrow night UK time the third match of the Ashes series gets underway in Adelaide. England have confirmed their playing XI, with the only change from Brisbane being Tongue coming in for Atkinson. That means that Shoaib Bashir, fast tracked into the England team and kept there in spite of some less than convincing returns at test level with this specific series in mind may end up not participating until it has already been lost. However England’s actual selections work out they have made themselves look fools over Bashir. Now for my usual sign off…

These last few photos are of a massive fly past of migrating birds. There is virtually no overlap between the birds being photographed here. The pictures were taken on Columbia Way at about 3:30PM, as I returned from my post-lunch walk.

BBL 2024-5’s Big Cull

A look at today’s action in the BBL and the state of play in that competition with one group match still to play. Also a large photo gallery.

There were two BBL matches today – first at the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne the Renegades played host to Brisbane Heat, and then in Perth the Scorchers played host to Adelaide Strikers. At the start of today all four of these teams had mathematical chances of qualifying, as also did incumbent fourth placers Melbourne Stars. By the end of today only one of the four teams in action retained a chance of qualifying. This post looks at how the day unfolded.

BRISBANE BOWLERS BATTERED

Brisbane Heat batted first, and a score of 196-4 should at least have tested their hosts. Unfortunately some very ordinary bowling and a quite magnificent innings from Jake Fraser-McGurk (95 off 46 balls) saw Renegades win by three wickets with two whole overs to spare, a result that put Renegades fourth, ahead of city rivals Stars on net run rate, but with the latter having a game in hand, to be played tomorrow. Scorecard here.

GAMES WITHIN GAMES

Adelaide Strikers found themselves batting first, and started at a tremendous gallop, looking likely to score over 200 for a significant part of their innings. However they suffered a horrendous batting collapse from a high water mark of 88-2 after 7.1 overs, ending up being all out for 161 from 19.1 overs.

The Perth Scorchers innings was where games within games came into play – they needed 162 from 20 overs to win, but a close match would see both sides eliminated, one on absolute terms and the other on net run rate. The calculations revealed that Scorchers needed to knock the runs off in 18 overs or less to move into fourth on net run rate, while Strikers needed to restrict Scorchers to 146 or less to take fourth spot themselves.

At the half way stage Scorchers were 85-3, ahead of the basic required rate, but short of where they needed to be to win in 18 overs or less. When the fourth wicket pair were still in residence at the end of the 12th over Scorchers took their two over Power Surge, quite rightly – with the 18 over win in mind they could have delayed at most one more over while still getting full benefit from their surge. In the event they did superbly in those two overs, scoring 31 runs and losing only one wicket. In the course of 16th over two things happened – first Scorchers moved to 147, which ensured that Strikers were eliminated even if they somehow won from there, and then the Scorchers 150 came up. At the start of the 17th over 11 runs were needed and Scorchers had two overs in which to get them to stay alive in the tournament. In point of fact it took Cooper Connolly precisely two balls to complete the job, with the third and fourth sixes of his innings. Connolly had scored 39* (21), and Scorchers had won by six wickets with 3.4 overs of their allocated 20 unused, and 1.4 overs of the 18 that they had at their disposal given net run rate considerations. Thus Scorchers currently sit fourth, with one group game, tomorrow morning between Hobart Hurricanes, already confirmed as winners of the league stage, and Melbourne Stars who will qualify if they can win, or if the match is washed out, or if it is tied and the Super Over is also tied. Scorecard here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Women’s Ashes Underway

A look at the opening match of the Women’s Ashes and at the Melbourne derby in the BBL. Also a large photo gallery.

This post is actually a two parter – the first part mentions the opening match of the Women’s Ashes series now underway in Australia, while the second looks at the Melbourne Derby in the BBL.

A BAD DAY FOR ENGLAND

The Women’s Ashes is a multi-format series – three ODIs worth two points each, a test match worth four points and three T20Is worth two points each. Australia as holders will retain the trophy if the series is drawn, meaning that England need to win it outright. The first ODI took place overnight UK time at the North Sydney Oval. There were no great selection surprises. Australia won the toss and put England in. England did not bat well – a number of players got starts but no one managed a really big score, and in the end they only just topped 200. Off spinning all rounder Ashleigh Gardner took 3-19 and also held two catches. England bowled a lot better than they had batted, but the damage was done. Alyssa Healy led the way with 70 off 78 balls, and Gardner also batted well. Ecclestone just failed to complete a catch to dismiss Gardner which would have had Australia 183-7. There were no further chances, and Gardner was 42 not out when Australia completed victory with 11.1 overs to spare. Full scorecard here.

STARS’ LAZARUS ACT

The title of this section has a double meaning – referring to both today’s match and the Melbourne Stars season.

When Stars lost their first five group matches no one would have imagined that they would be anywhere near claiming a knockout slot come the business end. Three successive wins took them into this Melbourne derby still down but not necessarily out. At 75-7 at the end of the 11th over they looked doomed to end their revival, going down to neighbours Renegades. Glenn Maxwell was still there, and was their sole remaining hope. He proceeded to turn the game upside down with a brutal display of hitting. With nine balls remaining in the innings Usama Mir fell an five ball duck – but the 40 balls that Maxwell had faced out of their 45 balls had seen the score advance by 81! Four balls after Mir was dismissed Maxwell’s extraordinary innings came to an end, bowled by Kane Richardson for 90 off 52 balls, including ten sixes and four fours. Peter Siddle, 40 years of age, helped Stars to add a further seven runs before being out to the last ball of the innings. Stars thus had 165 to defend. Every time Renegades looked even vaguely like getting anything going in reply a wicket fell. Renegades took their two over Power Surge for overs 13 and 14, and those two overs seemed certain to settle it one way or another. They did indeed – Renegades had a disaster, accruing a mere seven runs from those two overs and losing three wickets. The required rate was now climbing alarmingly, and by the time eight balls were left in the match Renegades needed 54 to win. They managed to scrape up 11 of those runs, giving Stars victory by 42 runs and a huge net RR boost. Stars now have a long wait for their tenth and final group match, but with the knowledge that if a few intervening results help them they will have a chance to qualify for the knockouts at the last gasp.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

Protecting Nature

Some stuff about nature, with a sidelight on public transport. Links to several nature/ transport themed posts and many appropriately themed photos.

INTRODUCTION

This is the first of several posts I will be putting up today. Two of the links I shall be sharing are to posts that have already appeared on this site as reblogs, but which I consider so important, that I am going to link to them again. There is also among my links a piece relating to public transport for which I make no apology, as transport policy can have a big impact on nature, whether positively or negatively depending on the nature of the policy. As usual plenty of my own pictures will feature as well.

TAKING THE LOCAL AUTHORITY TO TASK

Two pieces in this section:

Anna’s searching questions of her local authority as part of the ongoing campaign to save Trosa nature. For those who have not already seen the piece, please click on the magnificent infographic/ meme that Anna created based on a comment I made on one of her previous posts.
A cabal of Tories seeking to force through the building of an expensive and environmentally damaging incinerator is all too familiar to a West Norfolk resident. This time the dodgy dealing is going on in Gloucestershire and again it is a Tory controlled County Council that seeks to force through the building of the incinerator. The Skwawkbox have picked up on the story, for which I am very grateful, and I urge everyone who reads this to visit this post by clicking on the image below.

Illustration of GCC’s planned Javelin Park incinerator

BADGER CULLS AND BIOSECURITY

This one appears on Chris Packham’s website, and consists of a brief introduction to a person by the name of Anna Dale, and then an essay by this same Anna Dale titled “Below-par biosecurity should mean no badger cull licence”. To read this detailed essay please click on the graphic below.

BUSES IN CRISIS

This comes to you courtesy of the Campaign for Better Transport. Contained within this worrying piece is a bit of good news – an infographic relating to the achievements of 2016. To read the full detail on the crisis with Britain’s buses please click on the shocking graph below.

PHOTOGRAPHS 1: WORK

In this, the first of two sections of this post devoted to my photographs, I share some nature and transport related pictures from yesterday and Thursday at work. The first of these is of an item in the March auction, which I therefore use as a link to our online catalogue, while all the rest are from lots in our April auction.

948-a — Part of lot 948 in our April auction

GT1 — This image and the next relate to lot 948

GLTW — Likewise this image and the next relate to lot 934

PHOTOGRAPHS 2: LEISURE

To end the post here some photos from in and around King’s Lynn…

	The First Two Days i… on A Successful Auction
	Marizanne’s Mastercl… on From Victory to Rout in Two…
	From Victory to Rout… on An Extraordinary Opening …
	amsutcliffebtinterne… on Thunder v Scorchers
	Thunder v Scorchers… on Brilliant Bray Bosses Sydney…