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That's it from this absolutely entertaining Melbourne Derby. This is Dwaipayan Mukherjee, signing off with my hard-working co-commentator Sourabh Aggarwal. See you around!
Nicole Faltum (Player of the match): All good now. It was a close game, nice to come out on the right side. We have always said that we bat really deep, wanted to back that. It was about building partnerships and me and Georgia (Wareham) really did that. We have big hitter coming lower down and Georgia (Prestwidge) did really well to get us to a good total. I just wanted to stay calm. We believe we can do it (qualify).
Melbourne Renegades (170 for 6) defeat Melbourne Stars (161 for 8) by 9 runs
Sarah Coyte - 2/13 | Hayley Matthews - 2/27 Rhys McKenna - 34 (18) | Marizanne Kapp - 32 (25)
The topsy-turvy match ends with Renegades winning the Derby for the 2nd time this season! It was interesting how it all began. It was quite an eventful and expensive start to the chase - 11 runs from the first 2 balls since the opening ball of the chase was an over the waist no ball which was dispatched for a boundary by Indian opener Yastika Bhatia. The left hand opener was stumped in the first ball of the 2nd over.
Meg Lanning, in her conversation with the commentary team in the first innings of the match, mentioned the presence of dew in the ground and that will play a pivotal role as the night goes on. The experienced Aussie began with a couple of sweep shots that became boundaries within her first 3 balls.
Ines McKeon did not face a single delivery in the first couple of overs in the chase and sometimes that scarcity of strike begins to affect the general rhythm and flow of batters. Lanning got off the blocks quickly but it did not happen for long.
Hayley Matthews dismissed Lanning in her first over as Stars slumped to 30 for 2 in the 4th over. Wareham removed the struggling McKeon as the scores of both the teams after 5 overs of their innings was not too dissimilar. Stars would have to repeat what the Renegades did earlier in the day.
Sutherland was dropped twice within 4 balls with Wareham and Prestwidge committing the cardinal sin near the boundary line. Maybe it was the dew doing its bit. The luck did not last long as Dottin's first ball of the night saw the Caribbean woman gobbling a relatively easy caught and bowled chance to send back the Stars skipper.
Kapp and Deepti Sharma hung around for a while but the first ball of the Power Surge led to the demise of the Indian all-rounder, who became the 2nd victim of Matthews. Interesting to note that both of Hayley's wickets were caught by Illingworth. When Dottin knocked over Kapp in the 2nd over of the Surge, the task developed into an uphill battle for the Stars.
Flintoff and McKenna are in the top 4 list of fastest half centuries in the history of WBBL. And they put in a fight till the very end before Sarah Coyte, the perennial journey-woman, if there's a term, of Australian cricket put an end to both of those innings. And that proved to be the final nail of the coffin.
20
overs
161/8score
0
1
1
4
1
1
runs
Maisy Gibson*
2(3)
Kim Garth
7(5)
Hayley Matthews
2/27
19.6 Hayley Matthews to Maisy Gibson, nicely tossed up on the stumps, swung away to the leg side for just a single and the Melbourne Renegades win by 9 runs, they take the Melbourne Derby and do the double over the Melbourne Stars
19.5 Hayley Matthews to Kim Garth, slowed up on the stumps again, Garth gives it a big hoick but only gets it as far as deep mid-wicket on the bounce
19.4 Hayley Matthews to Kim Garth, FOUR, nicely slowed up on the leg stump, Garth goes for the big sweep, gets a bit of an under edge which escapes short fine to her right, Dottin hunts it down with a big dive but the ball trickles away for four, 13 off 2 needed
19.3 Hayley Matthews to Maisy Gibson, down the leg side this time, Gibson gets a bit of it on the sweep, down to short fine leg, only a single again
19.2 Hayley Matthews to Kim Garth, fired in at the stumps, knocked to mid-on, just a single
19.1 Hayley Matthews to Kim Garth, tosses it up to tease Garth, she chips down and swings, gets an inside edge on to the pads, no run