Tag: WBBL10

Thunder Blown Away by Hurricanes

An account of today’s WBBL match (Hobart Hurricanes v Sydney Thunder) and a photo gallery.

Today’s match in the WBBL was between Hobart Hurricanes and Sydney Thunder.

THE HURRICANES INNINGS

Sydney Thunder won the bat flip and put Hobart Hurricanes in to bat. Lizelle Lee was out cheaply, but Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Nicola Carey had a good partnership for the second wicket, and then Elyse Villani offered Carey further support. At the halfway stage of their innings the Hurricanes were 64-2 and looking set for a big score. They took the Power Surge (in this competition sides get four overs of standard Power Play at the start of the innings and a two over Power Surge which must be taken in the second half of the innings) immediately, and scored 28 runs from the two overs. At 92-2 after 12 overs 170 looked to be possible and 160 to be no mare than par. Then came a horrendous collapse which started with the dismissal of Carey for a fine 52 and saw four wickets tumble for just 12 runs. Tabatha Saville batted well at number seven, and found some useful late support from Molly Strano, who scored 9 not out off just five balls. The spinners had fared far better than the seamers. Shabnim Ismail’s pace was ineffective, leaving her with 0-30 from four overs, while Hannah Darlington, thad a disastrous 2-0-28-0, although veteran Sammy-Jo Johnson went for just 19 from her four overs and took a wicket. Pick of the Thunder bowlers was left arm spinner Samantha Bates who had 3-20. Hurricanes had amassed 141-7 by the end of their innings, 92-2 off the first 12 overs and 49-5 off the last eight overs.

THE THUNDER REPLY

There are few better options when spin is going to be key than Molly Strano, and the Hurricanes entrusted her with the first over of the innings. The very first ball of the Thunder innings pinned Sri Lankan ace Chamari Athatpaththu who had earlier claimed 2-26 from four overs of off spin plumb LBW. Athapaththu was somewhat slow to leave the crease, but it was one of the plumbest LBWs you could ever see. Phoebe Litchfield survived the remaining five balls of the over, but was not able to score off any of them, thus giving Strano the first maiden of this year’s tournament. Kathryn Bryce, the Scottish all rounder who bowls medium pace, was given the second over and conceded 14, which ended her participation as a bowler. The third over was Strano’s second, and six runs accrued from it. Lauren Smith, another off spinner, bowled the fourth over, and Georgia Voll was dismissed, holing out to Chloe Tryon in the deep to make it 24-2. Tahlia Wilson and Georgia Adams fell for 3 a piece, off four and six balls respectively and it was 38-4 in the seventh over. Anika Learoyd now offered Litchfield, who was playing beautifully after her slow start, the only serious support she would enjoy all innings. Litchfield reached a magnificent 50 off 36 balls, but then suffered a remarkable dismissal – Heather Graham, a medium pacer, fired one wide of the stumps and Lizelle Lee executed a smart stumping. The delivery was signalled wide, but one can be stumped off a wide, and Litchfield had to go, making the score 91-5. Sammy-Jo Johnson, a big hitter on her day, fell cheaply to make it 96-6. Two runs later Nicola Carey effectively ended the contest by bowling Learoyd for 29 to make it 98-7. 44 runs of 5.4 overs is not difficult if you have front line batters available to score them, but when you down to numbers 8,9,10 and 11 it is a major ask. Ella Briscoe and Hannah Darlington added 10 runs together for the eighth wicket before Heather Graham ended what had been a horror day for Darlington by bowling her for four. That was 108-8, which immediately became 108-9 when a mix-up between Ismail and Briscoe saw Ismail suffer that rarity, a zero ball duck (run out 0, having not faced a ball). By this stage were Thunder were a long way behind the required run rate as well. Samantha Bates who had earlier bowled so well got a single, and Briscoe also added a single to her score before the last ball of the 18th over, bowled by Tryon with her left arm spin, clean bowled Bates to make 110 all out and victory to the Hurricanes by 31 runs. Other than Bryce’s single expensive over the most expensive Hurricanes bowler was Tryon with 2-19 from three overs for an ER of 6.33. Heather Graham had 3-19 from her full four overs. Nicola Carey, one of the two half centurions in the match and also the possessor of figures of 3-0-18-1, was named Player of the Match.

After the first 12 overs of this match had yielded 92-2 the last 26 produced a combined 159-15. Bryce in that one over apart the Hurricanes seamers had realized that pace on the ball on this pitch just asked to be hit and deliberately slowed themselves down.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…

WBBL10 Under Way

A look at the two WBBL10 games on which there were radio commentaries today, and a large photo gallery.

The 10th edition of the Women’s Big Bash League is underway. I got most of two commentaries today, first Melbourne Renegades against Sydney Sixers, which was happening on neutral territory, at Adelaide, and then Perth Scorchers against Melbourne Stars which took place at the historic WACA stadium in Perth.

RENEGADES v SIXERS – A BATTLE WITHIN A BATTLE

This match, a battle between representatives of Australia’s two biggest cities was dominated by titanic individual performances from two of Australian cricket’s biggest stars.

Renegades batted well, with the highlight a spectacular 61 (31) from Georgia Wareham. For the Sixers skipper Ellyse Perry was easily the best of the bowlers, recording 4-0-25-2. Caoimhe Bray (that first name is apparently pronounced ‘Keeva’), all of 15 years and 34 days old, meaning that Perry is quite genuinely old enough to be her mother, was given a single over of right arm medium fast. She conceded 15 runs, but ended the over by extracting an ample measure of vengeance, rearranging Deandra Dottin’s stumps.

Perry launched a spectacular onslaught at the start of the Sixers reply. Yorkshire batting all rounder Hollie Armitage opened the innings with Perry and provided splendid support, contributing 30 (23) to an opening stand of 79 in 7.2 overs. Ashleigh Gardner fell cheaply, but Scottish batter/ keeper Sarah Bryce provided Perry further support. It took an excellent catch by Linsey Smith off Wareham to end Perry’s innings, for 81 off 38 balls. Wareham, backed by fellow spinners Smith and Capsey now seemed to have swung the match in her and the Renegades’ favour, with Courtney Sippel’s dismissal making the score 147-7. At that point the youngster, Bray, joined Bryce, and Bryce finally found her best form. It was Bray, on her debut in professional cricket, who made the winning hit, a four off the final ball of the 19th over that took her score to 12* (5), while Bryce had 36* (25). Wareham had 3-0-26-3. With the Sixers winning Perry was named Player of the Match – had Renegades won it would almost certainly have been given to Wareham. Scorecard here.

SCORCHERS v STARS – BOWLERS DOMINANT

Scorchers batted first, and run getting was never easy, though Mooney (skipper and keeper as well as opening batter) and Amy Jones (playing as specialist batter) each reached 30, and Chloe Piparo managed 23. A total of 122-8 looked modest. Left arm spinner Sophie Day had 3-21 from her four overs.

Ines McKeon, a 17 year old batter/keeper, and Meg Lanning opened the batting for the Stars. McKeon was impressive right from the start, but Lanning never got going. The first turning point of the innings was a sensational over from Chloe Ainsworth, a 19 year old fast bowling all rounder, the first ball of which cleaned up Lanning, and the fifth did the same to Annabel Sutherland. McKeon was playing a gem of an innings, all the more extraordinary given how young she is, but could find no one to stay with her. Marizanne Kapp briefly looked like doing so, but was run out when leg spinner Alana King deflected a fiercely struck drive from McKeon into the bowler’s end stumps with the South African out of her ground. Thereafter it became a procession, and when Sophie Reid was sixth out only 78 were on the board. Kim Garth finally provided McKeon with some support, and the youngster brought up a superb 50 off 43 balls. The next delivery was a wide, off which Beth Mooney executed a smart stumping. That was 95-7, and it was down to Garth and numbers 9,10 and 11 to conjure 28 runs between them. Bizarrely cricinfo’s Win Predictor still had the Stars as favourites at that point, a reminder that AI is far from all powerful – to anyone who knew anything whatsoever about cricket the Stars after McKeon’s dismissal were rank outsiders. Five runs later Carly Leeson, whose first over had been disfigured by a number of wides, but whose second was a lot better, took a wonderful return catch to account for Garth, and now even Win Predictor recognized the writing on the wall for the Stars. The last two wickets scraped a further nine runs, the majority extras. Ninth out was Sasha Moloney, bowled by Lilly Mills for 1. Number 11 Maisy Gibson survived one ball, but off her second the Mooney/ King combo were in business for the second time of the innings, and the match was over with Scorchers winning by 13 runs. Although King with 3-20 had the best figures of the innings it was quite correctly Ainsworth, who had broken things open for the Scorchers with those two monster scalps of Lanning and Sutherland who was named Player of the Match. Scorecard here.

PHOTOGRAPHS

My usual sign off…