HURRICANES FINALLY BREAK THE DROUGHT

WITH nerves of steel, Hobart Hurricanes stand-in skipper Isobel Joyce sent down a critical final over that brought undone a hardcharging Melbourne Renegades and delivered the home side’s first win of the WBBL season.

Staring down the barrel of a 10th loss, the Hurricanes produced their best all-round performance of WBBL03 to claim a four-run thriller at Blundstone Arena.

Standing in for injured Canes captain Corinne Hall (toe), Joyce played a key role in only her second game for Hobart this summer, brought in to replace Veda Krishnamurthy, who leaves today for Indian national duties.

After losing badly to the Renegades at Blundstone on Sunday, Hobart scored 9-120 and kept the Renegades to 6-116.

Renegades skipper Amy Satterthwaite needed six off the last ball to tie the match, but Joyce dipped in to her bag of tricks to thwart the Kiwi star.

After losing their first nine games and shaping as the first team to go winless through a WBBL season, Joyce said Hurricanes had finally shaken the monkey off their back.

“Definitely. It’s hard when you’re on a roll of losing to have that belief,” she said.

“Sunday was probably the worst performance we’ve had. We couldn’t have done worse.

“Coming into today, we talked about having little wins rather than big wins — winning a power play, winning a few overs and building from there.”

Krishnamurthy finally found form with a much-needed 40 in the middle order and Stefanie Daffara contributed an attacking 28 in the top order.

A total of about 150 looked on before Hobart stumbled again, losing 7-24, including a 5-13 collapse from their last five overs.

The Hurricanes head for Perth for two games this weekend followed by their last two games, against the Stars at the MCG.

“It’s more about building for next year,” Joyce said.

“We’re obviously going to try to keep winning, and maybe ruin someone’s season if we can.”