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…
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