At 8:15 this morning UK time the Big Bash League encounter between Brisbane Heat and Hobart Hurricanes got underway. This post looks back at the match.
THE BRISBANE HEAT INNINGS
Hobart Hurricanes won the bat flip and put Brisbane Heat into bat. Josh Brown and Colin Munro opened the batting for Heat, while Riley Meredith took the new ball for Hobart Hurricanes. A very fine over was marred by the last delivery, which was hit for four to make Heat 6-0. Corey Anderson bowled the second over, and it was a poor one – he bowled two wides, and conceded nine runs in total, four of them off the eighth delivery, necessitated by the bowling of the wides. Nathan Ellis, the Hurricanes captain, and veteran medium pacer Chris Jordan bowled the fourth over of the opening Power Play. Both bowled well, especially Jordan, and Heat were 22-0 after four overs. The fifth over, bowled by left arm wrist spinner Patrick Dooley, should have produced the first wicket but Tim David dropped an absolute sitter. Hurricanes continued to ring the changes, with the sixth over being bowled by a sixth different bowler, Nikhil Chaudhary. This over yielded eight runs including a four, but also a wicket of the sixth ball, Josh Brown, caught by Macallister Wright to make it 35-1. The seventh over finally saw someone bowl a second over, Riley Meredith. This over yielded a mere four runs and Heat were 39-1. Chaudhary bowled the eighth over, and it seemed to have ignited the Heat innings, Munro taking 20 from it, including two sixes and a four, 59-1. Dooley bowled the ninth over, and after five excellent deliveries he conceded a four off the last ball of it to make it 67-1. Ellis bowled the tenth over, conceding seven runs, but also trapping Heat’s number three, McSweeney, LBW. Heat were 74-2 at the halfway stage of their innings. Heat messed up the second half of their innings. They were overcautious about the Power Surge, and lost Munro for a well made half century before they got round to taking it. They then panicked and took it with two new batters together at the crease and made an utter hash of it, scoring 8-1 from those two overs. That left them at 112-5 from 17 overs. The last three overs were bowled by Jordan, Ellis, and then Jordan, and although Paul Walter made a brave effort to increase the total the two experienced bowlers restricted the damage from this last three overs to 20 runs, while two wickets fell. Ellis had 2-23 from his four overs, Jordan 3-19 from his four, and the most economical of all had been Meredith, conceding just 15 from his four.
THE HOBART HURRICANES INNINGS
With such a poor total to defend Heat needed early wickets to have any chance of success, and they got them, Michael Neser claiming one in the first over, and then Xavier Bartlett striking three times in quick succession to account for Wright, Sam Hain and Anderson. Hurricanes ended their four overs of Power Play reeling at 25-4. After 4.4 overs, two balls short of constituting a match, rain came down and the players left the field. The interruption was not a massive one, but enough to reduce the length of the Hurricanes innings to 16 overs, their target to 118 and their Power Surge from two overs to one. Hurricanes fought hard, with Chaudhary and David batting well. They like Heat were guilty of overcaution about the Power Surge, but fortune favoured them, and Chaudhary and David were still together when they finally took it. They may have mistimed taking it, but once they did take it they made decent use of their Power Surge, taking 12 runs off it. This left them needing 20 off the last two overs. In the next over David was dismissed, but Chaudhary did manage to get on strike for the start of the final over, with 13 needed to win. Paul Walter, the tall left arm medium pacer from Essex, bowled this over. Chaudhary hit the first ball for six to bring up a fine fifty, and when he added two more off the second ball the target was down to five off four balls. However, just when it seemed like he was set to be the matchwinner for his side Chaudhary then edged the next delivery through to Billings, and it was five needed off three balls with only tailenders left. Singles came off the next two deliveries, and Hurricanes needed three off one ball to win. They managed only one, with Dooley being run out going for a second. This meant that Heat had hung on to win by one run on the DLS method. Xavier Bartlett, whose three early wickets had given Heat the chance to defend a very modest total, was named Player of the Match, quite correctly in my view. Full scorecard here.
BRIEF FURTHER THOUGHTS
Neither side distinguished themselves when it came to the use of the Power Surge – Heat had two got opportunities to take it with Munro at the crease and going well and neglected both, allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good, and ending up having to use those overs without Munro to exploit them, while Hurricanes left it at least one, possibly two overs longer than they should to claim theirs, and were rather fortunate after delaying like that to still have both Chaudhary and David at the crease to use it. Hurricanes dropped two easy chances in the field, and Chaudhary panicked just when it seemed that he was winning them the match. Heat finding a way to defend such a low total illustrated why they are ensconced at the top of the table.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
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