Women’s Big Bash League match review: Sydney Sixers v. Sydney Thunder at Sydney

Needing to continue their six-match winning streak to cement a finals birth, the Sydney Sixers sent themselves into bat. Alyssa Healy came out firing, with three fours off the first over, while her opening partner, the ‘It’ girl of Australian sport Ellyse Perry, floundered with a sextet of dot balls off Lauren Cheatle’s first over.

Perry was sent packing in the fourth over, having scored one run from fourteen balls, and having been bowled down middle and leg by Nicola Carey. But Healy continued the slog-a-thon with Ashleigh Gardner, the pair combining for a second-wicket partnership of seventy-six.

The Thunder’s poor fielding was perhaps the Sixers’ greatest asset; Gardner was dropped on thirty-four by Alex Blackwell at mid-off, while Healy was dropped on the boundary rope by Naomi Stalenburg the following over on thirty-five. By the time Rene Farrell was able to dismiss Healy for forty-four with a successful catch at mid-off, the Sixers were 2/95. Gardner then brought up her fifty in style with a six over long-on before skying a shot into the infield and the waiting hands of Blackwell.

Kiwi import Sara McGlashan and South African Marizanne Kapp continued the onslaught, picking off fours with nonchalance. Eventually, Kapp’s impetuous running between the wickets led to her downfall: after surviving one referral to the third umpire, a failure to get back to the non-striker’s end during an aborted second run led to a run out at the hands of Farrell.

The same fate, sealed by the same bowler, awaited the next batter in, Sarah Aley, in the penultimate over. A McGlashan six, as Lisa Sthalekar sans helmet stood in awe at the non-striker’s end, ended the innings, the pink ladies bringing up the highest total of the season, 6/172.

The Sixers’ bowling attack picked up where their batting line-up left off, Kapp setting the tone with a first-over maiden. The feisty right-arm Port Elizabethan brunette snagged three wickets in her first three overs: Rachael Haynes caught in the infield for six, Blackwell l.b.w. for a golden duck, Stafanie Taylor caught for ten. With Stalenburg also stumped for a golden duck off Aley’s bowling, the westies were 4/30 at the end of the powerplay.

With the target of 173 now seemingly impossible to chase down, Carey and Erin Osborne set about doing just that. They put on eighty-one runs, including thirty-three between the twelfth and fourteenth overs. Carey reached her half-century (scored off thirty balls) in the fourteenth over with a well-timed drive down the leg-side, and not even a 120km/h delivery from Perry could unseat the pair.

It took until the sixteenth over for the hosts to get the breakthrough they desired, when Sthalekar’s off-spin bedazzled a reverse-sweeping Carey, leaving the Thunder 5/106. Wicketkeeper Claire Koski entered the fray and hit a quick-fire ten off five balls before getting herself caught behind. Osborne and Farrell kept the runs flowing before the former was caught by the substitute Sara Hungerford.

By the time Kapp bowled Farrell in the nineteenth over, the run chase was well and truly over. Seven wins in as many matches, and fourth place on the road for Perry, Kapp, Sthalekar, and the gang. (Postscript: the Sixers finished the regular season in third place, and will face second seeds the Hobart Hurricanes in the semi-finals.)

Sydney Sixers 6/172 (20 overs) (Ashleigh Gardner 55; Sarah McGlashan 49*; Belinda Vakarewa 1/13; Lauren Cheatle 1/19) – Sydney Thunder 9/151 (20 overs) (Nicola Carey 53; Erin Osborne 36; Marizanne Kapp 4/18; Lisa Sthalekar 3/34)

Women’s Big Bash League match review: Melbourne Renegades v. Sydney Thunder at Melbourne (Docklands)

Another Saturday, another televised afternoon of the best thing since sliced bread women’s T20 cricket. The bottom-of-the-table Melbourne Renegades put themselves into bat against league leaders the Sydney Thunder at the open-roofed Docklands Stadium.

Needing to come out firing, Kiwi wicketkeeper Rachel Priest and South African batter Dane van Niekerk combined for a mammoth opening partnership of sixty-eight. They hit over the top during the powerplay, assisted by the pacy outfield, with van Niekerk hitting left-arm pacewoman Lauren Cheatle for a six (the only one of the match) in the fourth over, then a pair of fours two overs later.

Priest survived a stumping appeal which was sent upstairs, before her opening partner lofted a short ball to mid-wicket on twenty-nine. Danni Wyatt was the next batter in, and copped another knock to her body while stationed at the non-striker’s end before spinner Maisy Gibson clipped the top of her bails with a leg break.

Having made 5/86 in last week’s MCG derby, the Renegades took 12.2 overs to get to 2/86 this week, and Priest brought up her fifty with little fanfare in the fifteenth over. Captain Sarah Elliott made a quick-fire eighteen before being stumped; Kris Britt followed her into the pavilion the following over after being caught at cover.

Priest went off the first ball of the penultimate over, caught by Gibson at square leg for fifty-seven from fifty-five balls, twenty of those runs coming from fours. A late-innings collapse saw one Renegades’ batter run out and two more caught lofting the ball high into the infield. The power hitting of Priest, van Niekerk, and Elliott, who hit eleven fours and a six between them, had ensured that the hosts would set their opponents a target of 140.

Unable to find their rhythm, the Thunder’s batting line-up wilted under the hot Melbourne sun. The Docklanders opened the bowling with off-spinner Molly Strano, who dismissed both opening batters in the third over: Rachael Haynes bowled for three and Jamaican import Stafanie Taylor l.b.w. for seven, leaving the sirens from the Siren City reeling at 2/13.

Naomi Stalenburg was out shortly afterwards, skying a ball to short third (wo)man. The Thunder were 3/27 at the end of the powerplay, but corvopolitan captain Alex Blackwell and partner Nicola Carey steadied the ship. Carey fell to a Sophie Molineux l.b.w. in the ninth over, Claire Koski and Charlotte Anneveld also coming and going in quick succession. Blackwell then combined with tail-ender Rene Farrell, executing a wide array of power hits, ramp shots, and switch hits.

The Sydneysiders kept going, but failed to make the target chaseable going into the final overs. Molineux and Strano dismissed Farrell and two more tail-enders, before Blackwell ended her captain’s knock of forty-five when she was caught and bowled by her opposite number Elliott.

Winning by thirty-six runs, the Renegades belied their status as the league’s cellar-dwellers, putting on a fine exhibition of cricket. This blog particularly enjoyed the contribution of the petite Pretorian van Niekerk: a superb innings at a strike rate of 120.83, the only six of the match, and some fine work in the field, including a spectacular last-over dive at deep square leg to deny Blackwell a six of her own.

Melbourne Renegades 8/139 (20 overs) (Rachel Priest 57; Dane van Niekerk 29; Belinda Vakarewa 2/13; Nicola Carey 2/23) – Sydney Thunder 103 (19.4 overs) (Alex Blackwell 45; Rene Farrell 18; Sophie Molineux 3/18; Molly Strano 3/20)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big Bash League

The bourgeois liberal economist John Maynard Keynes once challenged an adversary: “when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” This blog has also changed its mind: about T20 cricket.

Test cricket is a batsman’s game. That sounds counter-intuitive, given the common refrain from the purists than modern limited-overs cricket is based around an uneven contest between bat and ball. Sure, there are fewer sixes hit and run rates are lower in the five-day game, but that misses the point: the primary aim of test batting is not to lose one’s wicket.

Given that nearly one-third of tests end in draws, I would say that batsmen are doing just fine defending their wicket. Because cricket lacks any equivalent of baseball’s strikeout, and because bowlers need to deliver something like the Gatting Ball to dismiss a batsman bent on protecting his wicket, the wielders of the willow can stay at the crease forever, only getting out when they start trying to score runs.

If one were to design the ideal form of cricket, what ingredients would one put in it?

First, I would force batsmen to play at most deliveries, not just block or leave the good balls and hit the bad ones. T20 brings urgency to cricket, leaving batsman no time to ‘get their eye in’ and forcing them to play at most balls.

Second, I would want innovative, often unorthodox, 360-degree strokeplay. The ‘Dilscoop’, although first used by Learie Constantine for the West Indies against the M.C.C. at Lord’s in 1933, is a common sight in T20 matches. As is the ramp, the reverse sweep, Kevin Pietersen’s ‘switch hit’, and impromptu tennis shots. Test cricket, hidebound by the customs of Victorian England which problematised leg-side play and haunted by the spectre of Bodyline (‘fast leg theory’), fails to deliver this variety of strokeplay for the spectator.

Third, I would like to see the strategic use of singles to rotate the strike, assisted by fast running between the wickets: the cricketing equivalent of baseball’s ‘small ball’ tactics. Test cricket, defined by the lack any urgency to score runs on the part of the batting team, lacks this element, which also renders athleticism less important.

Fourth, I would like to see a wider range of deliveries used by fast bowlers. This Cricinfo article details the fascinating evolution of the slower ball, first used by Australian pacemen in county cricket in the 1990s during the death of a one-day innings, now a staple of T20 fast bowling. Such balls are pointless in tests, where batsmen are generally in no hurry to play shots and will just block or leave anything they don’t like the look of.

Fifth, having grown up idolising Shane Warne while hearing the doomsayers claim that spin bowling would die a natural death in limited-overs cricket, I would be excited to see spin bowlers dominating the bowling averages. Spinners have not just been the best-performing bowlers in the Big Bash League, but are often used strategically as opening bowlers, something unthinkable in tests, where they are used mainly to exploit the old ball or a friendly pitch.

Sixth, I would wish to see bowlers under the same pressures as batsmen. With (at most) twenty-four legal deliveries, bowlers are looking not just to get wickets (as in tests) or keep down the run rate (as in one-dayers), but to create dot balls and take wickets to slow the batting side’s momentum. Slower balls and yorkers are mixed in with stock balls to create a varied package of deliveries; in tests, the ball is in the batsman’s court, so the attacking skills of bowlers are emphasised at the expense of defensive containment.

Seventh, I would like to see good fielding. The fielding in the BBL is not just good, it is phenomenal. We’re all Jonty Rhodeses now. Test fielding, typified by large gatherings in the slips cordon and vacant outfields, lacks the spectacular boundary-rope catches and four-preventing slides that are the bread and butter of T20.

Eighth, I would want to see efficient field placings. Test cricket’s slips-heavy fields allow shots which beat the infielders to race away to the boundary for four; one-day cricket was (until the I.C.C. changed the playing conditions in mid-2015) hampered by the requirement that two fieldsmen be placed in catching positions, leaving the fielding team with five infielders and two outfielders with which to staunch the powerplay onslaught. T20 fields allow the defence to kill the powerplay with a ring of seven infielders, six infielders and a ‘shortstop’, or whatever else they fancy.

After watching so many BBL matches this summer, I feel that cricket is selling itself short by promoting T20 as the hit-and-giggle form of the sport, a ‘gateway drug’ to what the purists define as the ‘real thing’. This is the real thing: in contrast to T20, test cricket lacks the urgency, the unorthodox strokeplay, the variation in slower balls, the consecutive yorkers, the strategic deployment of spinners, the drama of a dot ball at a crucial moment, and the ‘small ball’ of fielding, strategic single-hitting, and running between the wickets.

The purists’ case for test cricket as the supreme form of the game rests on the valorisation of skill over speed, power, and athleticism. But sport is about more than mere skill: the various football codes as well as other spectator sports such as basketball and ice hockey understand this. Test cricket remains a platform for great individual achievements – centuries, double-centuries, five-wicket hauls – but too easily turns into a damp squib when two mismatched teams face off on an unsuitable pitch.

T20 simply provides a better platform for a contest between two teams’ batting and bowling/fielding line-ups. The Australian sporting public understand this, and are voting with their feet (and their remote controls).

Women’s Big Bash League match review: Melbourne Stars v. Melbourne Renegades at Melbourne

Winning the toss, captain Meg Lanning sent her Melbourne Stars in to bat. After having set the women’s circuit alight with seven best-on-grounds in seven matches, she proceeded to be dismissed for two, edging a defensive shot to wicketkeeper Erica Kershaw.

Without their talismanic captain, the Stars’ top order collapsed in a heap. Natalie Sciver and Emma Inglis were bowled in consecutive balls by South African pacewoman Shabnim Ismail, while Lanning’s opening partner Katie Mack was caught l.b.w. playing across the line. All of a sudden, the hosts were 4 for 8.

Needing to steady the ship, Mignon du Preez and Kelly Applebee accumulated singles, constantly rotating the strike. The green machine were 4 for 15 at the end of the powerplay, and du Preez broke through for the first boundary of the afternoon in the eleventh over. The breakthrough for the Renegades’ attack came in the next, when Applebee was caught behind off the bowling of Dane van Niekerk, ending a solid thirty-five-run partnership.

New Zealander Hayley Jensen came in and was soon picked off by a Molly Strano caught-and-bowled; it was the third of the off-spinner’s five wickets. Du Preez built another partnership with Tasmanian tailender Kristen Beams; the Northern Transvaal right-hander survived a stumping appeal in the fifteenth over before being caught at mid-wicket in the nineteenth. Beams and Gemma Triscari would fall to Strano in the final over, the Stars finishing on 9 for 85.

Emma Kearney opened the Stars’ bowling with Triscari. The latter bowled a maiden in the second over, and runs were hard to come by until van Niekerk began hitting over the top in the fourth. The South African was stumped in the next over, her replacement Kris Britt combining well with opening partner Sophie Molineux.

Eighteen runs later, Britt was herself stumped on the final ball of the tenth over, leaving the Renegades 2 for 31. Staffordshire all-rounder Danni Wyatt was the next batter in, and lifted her side with her aggressive running between the wickets and her toughness in shaking off a knock to the back of the head occasioned by one of Molineux’s straight drives.

The pair began ticking off the runs, with singles, twos, and fours; the Docklanders would hit five fours to the Jolimonters’ three. At the top of the sixteenth over, Molineux was run out dashing back to the non-striker’s end, ending a fine innings of thirty from forty-six deliveries.

Renegades’ captain Sarah Elliott would be the next batter run out failing to keep up with Wyatt, her wicket bringing the pocket rocket Ismail to the crease. The required run rate trended downwards: 24 from 24, 12 from 12, five from six. Ismail was defeated in the last over by a fabulous Triscari throw from point; the score at this juncture was 5 for 83. But a wide and two more singles was all the Renegades needed, Wyatt finishing on an unbeaten twenty-three.

This was the sort of match that demonstrated what T20 cricket can be: intelligent, tactical, and highlighted by good fielding and running between wickets. With eight fours and no sixes (due in part to the M.C.G.’s expansive dimensions), this was small ball cricket, cricket as it should be.

Melbourne Stars 9/85 (20 overs) (Mignon du Preez 36; Kristen Beams 14; Molly Strano 5/15; Shabnim Ismail 3/10) – Melbourne Renegades 5/86 (19.5 overs) (Sophie Molineux 30; Danni Wyatt 23*; Natalie Sciver 1/7; Kristen Beams 1/19)