Thunder stifles Hurricanes to progress through finals
THE SYDNEY Thunder have defeated the Hobart Hurricanes by six wickets to win the Women’s Big Bash League’s Knockout and move through to the next stage of the finals series.
After the Hurricanes made only 6/126, the Thunder then reached that target with an over to spare.
The win sees the Thunder move through to tomorrow’s Challenger where they will have to head to Brisbane to face the Heat, while for the Hurricanes it is season done and dusted.
A slow start to their battings innings really came back to bite the Hurricanes.
They found themselves at 1/13 four balls into the third overs, then 2/28 just over three overs later, and then 3/32 four balls after that, and then 4/47 just over three overs later.
A 54 run fifth wicket partnership between Elyse Villani and Suzie Bates gave the innings a bit of stability, but although they had brought the wickets falling to a stop they were only going at just over a run a ball.
Villani was by far the stand out with bat in hand for the Hurricanes, making 49 not out.
Meanwhile for the Thunder Chamari Athapaththu and Taneale Peschel were the pick of the bowlers with two wickets each, while Shabnim Ismail and Hannah Darlington took a wicket each.
Despite the tricky challenge in front of them, the Hurricanes got their defence off to the perfect start, dismissing Georgia Voll on the second ball of the innings to have the Thunder reeling at 1/0.
The Hurricanes also had a bit of a slow start to their innings, falling to 2/36 just under six overs in and then 3/64 early in the back half of the innings.
But then Phoebe Litchfield and Anika Learoyd put on a 61 run to take real control of the innings, so then when Litchfield was dismissed there was not much left for Learoyd and Georgia Adams left to do.
Litchfield ultimately top scored with 46, while earlier Athapaththu made 31.
Meanwhile for the Hurricanes it was all individual wicket takers, namely Molly Strano, Nicola Carey, Heather Graham and Amy Smith. Strano did bowl exceptionally well though despite only picking up the one wicket, bowling 17 dot balls in a 1/8 off four overs spell.