WBBL RECORDS TUMBLE
A WBBL record score of 200 lasted just one innings as women’s T20 reached stratospheric heights on the opening day in Sydney.
The old Women’s Big Bash mark of 190 was bettered by the Thunder against Melbourne Renegades in the afternoon, with the Thunder winning by 11 runs.
Then the Sixers exploded on North Sydney Oval, obliterating the fresh mark with a gigantic total of 242 in their 45-run win over the Stars.
That’s more than the men have managed in Big Bash — the BBL record of 223 set by Hobart in BBL02.
And the run mountain was just 21 shy of the all-time T20 record for men and women, which is the 263 scored by the Australian men against Sri Lanka in 2016. It wasn’t just Sydney fireworks, either —in Adelaide the Strikers made 183 against the Hurricanes.
Star allrounder Ellyse Perry said the runs were due to a number of things.
“I think we’re another year into the development of women’s cricket, we’ve had probably most of the players full time, elite cricketers for the last 12 months, that’s always going to lead to development,” Perry said.
“The girls are fitter, they’re stronger they’ve had more time to work on their technique and get to know their game
“It’s probably not surprising in a lot of ways.” Individuals dominated. First it was Renegade Jess Duffin (81 off 57), then Ash Gardner produced one of the most entertaining T20 innings seen, racing to the fastest century (47 balls) and highest score (114 off 57) in WBBL history.
It was only the third century in the WBBL.
Gardner was so good, Ellyse Perry’s 91 off 49 was virtually a cameo.
When Gardner bludgeoned the ball onto the roof of a stand, the loud clunk was followed by raucous applause. It was one of her 10 sixes.
At one stage she was 27 off eight balls. It was in the third over of the Sixers’ innings and it looked like this: a pull shot for four, the same shot, but over the deep midwicket rope for six, a driving four down the ground, a dot ball, a nice flick down to the fine leg boundary, and then a cut for four.
“It’s so surreal … it was just so awesome to be out there,” Gardner said. “To score a hundred, only the third one in the WBBL, is just so special.
“I’d love to do it again … hopefully I can put on another good performance throughout the year.”