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.)
No comments:
Post a Comment