STICK TO THE PLAN

Humbled but Hurricanes coach insists:

THE Hurricanes will stick with trying to blast opponents out with high-octane pace despite misfiring on the opening night, says coach Gary Kirsten

Even with imports Jofra Archer and Tymal Mills, and newbie Aaron Summers pushing 150km/h, Hobart was unable to stop the Melbourne Renegades cruising to a seven-wicket win with nine balls to spare.

While Archer was super impressive with 2-17 from his four overs, Mills (0-36 from four) and Summers (0-31 from three) were wayward, expensive and failed to take a wicket.

But coach Gary Kirsten said express pace was the Hurricanes’ point of difference with the ball.

“It is one game,” Kirsten said. “We either get the strategy right or wrong but at this stage we still back what we’ve got and what we want to do.

“In the warm-up games we showed that the balance of the squad we’ve got is a good one.”

Returning from a long layoff with injury, Mills was rusty early, bowling a nine-ball first over that went for 13 runs.

“It was his first game back for a while in the real competitive space,” Kirsten said.

“I think by his own admission he wasn’t quite going but he bowled a better second over. Hopefully he’ll come through, he’s going to be a major factor.

“He’s got some real skills and he’s a quality T20 bowler.

“It can happen, performance not quite where you want it to be but hopefully he’ll finish off better.”

Kirsten defended the inclusion of Summers ahead of Tom Rogers, with the former asked to do more in his debut than originally planned.

The new coach believes the side was not far away but failed to capitalise on a strong start from openers D’Arcy Short (34 off 19) and Alex Doolan (26 off 21).

“We’ve had some really good powerplays in the games we’ve played so far. I’m really excited about that,” he said.

“We lost our way in the middle a little bit — 15 more runs would have been a real factor in the game.”

The Hurricanes have a nine-day break until their next game, against the Sydney Thunder as Launceston hosts its first Big Bash match.