White Ferns x WBBL02: Update #6
Stepping out of the shadows.
The Women's Big Bash league finals have been sorted and while it has been a tad disappointing to not have dominant contributions from most of our White Ferns, Suzie Bates, Amy Satterthwaite and Sara McGlashan are all primed to do the business when it matters most. Bates' Perth Scorchers are set to take on Brisbane Heat tomorrow, followed by a clash between McGlashan's Sydney Sixers and Satterthwaite's Hobart Hurricanes on Wednesday.
Finals cricket means that the competition is over for the rest of our women cricketers and their respective teams in the WBBL02. We'll let Bates, Satterthwaite and McGlashan prepare for the finals, instead concerning ourselves with the kiwis that have been knocked out. Lea Tahuhu and Rachel Priest chipped in with steady performances for Melbourne Renegades, not enough to lead them to any success while Melbourne Stars spinner Morna Nielsen didn't quite offer the wicket-taking threat along with her economical bowling to make the Stars a lethal threat. Then we had Sophie Devine, who fell off after knocking that century for Adelaide Strikers.
Lea Tahuhu/Rachel Priest
The weekend's performances of Tahuhu and Priest reflected their WBBL02 campaigns nicely as they showed a glimpse of what they could do, while also struggling to offer contributions. As Sara McGlashan hit 45 off 38 for the Sixers, Tahuhu took 1/35 @ 8.75rpo and Priest then blazed 44 off 40 balls to steer the Renegades to victory.
This was however backed up with a loss. The Sixers batted first again and McGlashan once again chimed in with a nice 31 off 28 balls, before Priest was dismissed for a four-ball duck. Tahuhu wasn't playing in this game and she finished with the solid - not amazing - bowling stats of 9 wickets @ 31.33avg/5.75rpo for the tournament. Considering that Priest hit 263 runs @ 18.78 without a single half-century and two ducks (only one batswoman with over 100 runs had three ducks), you could form a strong argument that the Renegades didn't quite get the best value from their kiwis.
Morna Nielsen
In a different way, a win and a loss for Melbourne Stars reflected how Morna Nielsen's WBBL02 campaign also went. Known for her ability to dot 'em up in any format of cricket, Nielsen was instead smacked around for 9.81rpo in 1.5 overs in the Stars' win over the Hurricanes and then backed that up with 12 runs off her only over in the loss.
Nielsen played in 14 games and only took 6 wickets, which isn't such a bad collection when you consider that she can still have a great benefit to her team if she's only conceding 4-5rpo. Nielsen went for 6.39rpo in WBBL02 which meant that she wasn't really taking wickets and she was also fairly easy to score off. It shouldn't be viewed as a coincidence that Nieslen (and Tahuhu, Priest, Devine) struggled to influence games and the Stars aren't in the finals.
Sophie Devine
It feels like ages ago since Devine smashed a century for Adelaide Strikers and as Devine didn't play in the last game, she rounded off her WBBL02 campaign with a two-ball duck. Unfortunately for Devine and her Strikers, she hit scores of 0, 13, 10, 17 and 0 since that century and in the last three games in which she bowled, Devine didn't take a wicket.
187 of Devine's 270 runs came in a three games stretch, meaning that in six of Devine's nine innings' she scored 83 runs with two ducks. Devine did however finish with the highest strike-rate of batswomen with more than 200 runs (136sr).
Suzie Bates heads into her semi-final against Brisbane 15th in runs thanks to a 21.23avg/92.30sr with two half-centuries. She is also 12th in wickets with 12 wickets @ 25.91avg/6.68rpo. Bates is very similar to Amy Satterthwaite in that Perth and Hobart will be looking to their kiwi guns to lead the way in finals cricket, both are capable of having a great influence on these semi-finals with both bat and ball, how they deal with that pressure will be crucial.
Sattertwhaite is 6th in wickets with 15 wickets @ 18.13avg/6.63rpo as well as 9th in runs thanks to 51.83avg/110.67sr. Sara McGlashan will more than likely have to come in to bat and try to smack Satterthwaite around, so that'll be a fun battle to watch out for, especially as McGlashan enters this semi-final on the back of three notable scores: 30, 45 and 31.