White Ferns x WBBL02: Update #2

Certified six-hitter, ugh.

Six Women's Big Bash League games went down over the weekend, with Adelaide Strikers and Sydney Thunder the only teams not to play two games. Despite only playing one game over the weekend and having played three games in total while most other players have rolled through four games, Sophie Devine currently sits at the top of the run-scorers list. 

Devine's Strikers took on the Thunder and Devine took 1/8 off 2 overs, helping Adelaide restrict the Thunder to just 102/5 off 20 overs. With Devine in the sort of form that she is, a target of 103 was never going to be enough as Devine whacked 43 off 33 balls, with a strike-rate of 130.30 having come in at No.3. She was dismissed in the 15th over with the Strikers on 85/4, with the hard work already done as the Strikers reached 103/4 in the 18th over.

Everyone else who has scored over 100 runs has played four games, while Devine is sitting pretty at the top with 127 runs at 63.50avg and 129.59sr. This has come without a half-century, although Devine has hit the most sixes of the WBBL02 thus far with 5 sixes and her three scores to this point are: 43, 41* and 43.

We've got Devine as the top run-scorer, with Amy Satterthwaite now sitting in 3rd after she went back to back with notable scores for Hobart Hurricanes. Hobart won both their games against Melbourne Renegades, winning the Sunday game in an elimination over.

Satterthwaite hit 45 off 43 balls, coming in at No.4 as Hobart reached 133/4 off their 20 overs to set the Renegades a target 134 to win on the Saturday. She then took 2/22 @5.50rpo to keep the Renegades to 130/5 off 20 overs, before hitting 52 off 41 balls in the second game to help Hobart to 121/5 and with Satterthwaite only conceding 5.25rpo off her 4 overs, the Renegades could only draw level before Hobart won the elimination over. 

In each innings, Satterthwaite scored over 100sr (104.65sr, 126.82sr) and the Cantabrian is now finding a nice spot of form after she scored 7 and 18 in her first two games. Now, Satterthwaite has 122 runs at 61avg and a strike-rate of 107.01, bolstered by these two back to back innings' and this involved some kiwi on kiwi crime as Lea Tahuhu and Rachel Priest were both in the Renegades side.

Tahuhu was impressive for Melbourne, taking 1/22 @5.50rpo and 1/19 @4.75rpo while Priest struggled to make much of an impact opening the innings with scores of 7 and 18. Tahuhu did get two cheeky not-outs though; 3* and 0*.

Morna Nielsen's Melbourne Stars grabbed two wins over Sara McGlashan's Sydney Sixers, although it was McGlashan who had a greater impact on the game. In the first game, McGlashan smacked 40 off 32 balls, with the usually economical Nielsen only bowling 2 overs for 24 runs as the Sixers set a target of 123 which the Stars reached fairly easily in the 18th over, only 3 wickets down.

McGlashan could only manage 7 off 17 balls in the second game, with the Sixers reaching 111/8 off their 20 overs. This wasn't really because of Nielsen though as she only got through 2 overs again, conceding 7rpo off her overs and an impressive Starts batting line up chased their target down again, in the 17th over. Nielsen wasn't required to bat in either game.

McGlashan has 87 runs from four games, at an average of 29 and she joins Devine and Satterthwaite as the top kiwi run-scorers who also have strike-rates over 100; McGlashan owns a 108.75sr.

Suzie Bates and her Perth Scorchers won and lost a game to Brisbane Heat with Bates unable to contribute too much with the bat as she put up scores of 3 and 17. Perth's win came in the first game and Bates did manage to take 2/34 @8.50rpo as Perth kept Brisbane to just 101/9 off their 20 overs. The second game however saw Perth only make 94/9 off their 20 overs and Bates only bowled a single over, conceding 11 runs off it as Brisbane strolled to victory. 

Bates leads the kiwis in wickets, taking 5 wickets at 16.80avg, however she is the most expensive bowler to take 5 or more wickets as she's conceding 7.63rpo. Tahuhu is the next best kiwi bowler, taking 4 wickets at 22avg while Satterthwaite has 4 wickets at 24avg. 

The next round of games is set for Boxing Day, so we'll be back sometime next week to see how our White Ferns are tracking.