Melbourne Stars began their BBL 10 campaign with an emphatic victory over Brisbane Heat, showing signs of domination very early in the tournament. Hilton Cartwright played the anchor role as other batsmen, including captain Glenn Maxwell, chipped in to chase an easy total of 126 with 17 balls remaining.
Batting first after losing the toss, the Brisbane team never got the start that they badly wanted. A start-stop innings was seen going nowhere. Nathan Coulter-Nile, prime destroyer of the Heat innings, got into the act as soon as he got the ball, cleaning up the opener Max Bryant, who was looking to let loose after a cautious start.
Bryant was not the only one that got trapped in the Coulter-Nile Act. Any player that looked like settling in was trapped by the Western Australian seamer. In his 3.5 overs, the 33-year-old took four prized scalps of Bryant, Heat skipper Chris Lynn, Jimmy Peirson, and bowler Matthew Kuhnemann, giving away just 10 runs. For this piece of brilliance, Coulter-Nile was adjudged Man of the Match.
One of the new rules, the ‘Power Surge’, which was supposed to be a game-changer for the batting team, has turned out to be a dull affair so far for the team in need as it is the bowling side that has used it better. In this game too, Heat couldn’t really get the hang of it as, at first they were not in a great position to use it, and when they did take it in the 12th over, it rather gave the opposition two wickets with only 15 runs coming from the power surge overs.
In the last game too, Sydney Sixers, even after winning the Bash Boost for going ahead of Hobart Hurricanes in the first half of their chase, got the power surge horribly wrong and could only score 46 in the last six overs.
Cartwright’s fielding has been among the best in BBL and the league itself is the gold standard of fielding when it comes to such tournaments. While Heat were trying to rebuild their innings after a slow start, after the setback of losing Bryant early, it was really the run out of an impressive-looking Dan Lawrence that started the downfall.
A direct hit from mid-on from Cartwright got his wicket. There seemed to be no chance of a runout and therefore, Lawrence didn’t even try to dive, only to find himself short of the crease. Cartwright then showed his brilliance again as he ran a long way back, from mid on to the long-on boundary, to catch Simon Milenko’s on the rise shot.
Along with Cartwright, other Stars players were also brilliant in the field. As a result of this, there were a total of three run-outs in the Heat innings.
When Heat took the field they entered with a lot of energy and took two quick wickets of Marcus Stoinis and Andre Fletcher to get themselves in the game. The youngster Jack Wood, making his debut, took out Ben Dunk to make it 34 for 3 in the seventh over, forcing skipper Lynn to get in a slip for him.
With the pressure building via dot balls, at one point, Heat seemed like taking an important point through the Bash Boost rule as they had pushed the equation to 15 from 8 balls to get past 60 in 10 overs, the score that they had made in their first 10 overs.
Maxwell, however, had other ideas. He hit Wood for a six and four and took the equation down to just 5 from the next six balls, which the stars reached with much ease. The Big Show didn’t stop here as he wanted to end the game as fast as possible.
He started tearing the Heat bowling apart and in no time, the Stars were near their target. From a point when they were struggling to win the Bash Boost point to sensing victory in under 17 overs, it took just 26 balls for Maxwell to bring in the difference. Cartwright and Maxwell's 75-run partnership in just 51 balls was the key. While Maxwell was eventually bowled by the 24-year-old Wood for 46 from 26 balls, Cartwright remained not out on 42.
With four points, now the Stars have occupied the top of the table spot as the matches rotate between the two cities of Canberra and Hobart for the first leg. On 12th December, Saturday, there is a doubleheader, one of which involves the Stars who would face Sydney Thunder in what would be Thunder’s first game. The second game would be between Melbourne Renegades and Perth Scorchers.
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