BBL06: Who wants boring finishes?

Why just win a game comfortably, when you can confuse the hell out of everyone? I’ve always said the best kind of finishes are the ones where the opposition also think they’ve won, and that’s the kind of new innovation the BBL brought us this week.

And if that wasn’t enough, we saw a record score, a record chase, a communal protector, and an infamous Englishman gaining Freedom of the City of Hobart to round us out!

It’s been a rough week for Finchy…

Monday: Melbourne Renegades 6/170 lost to Sydney Sixers 4/171 at the Sydney Cricket Ground
The Renegades decided to buck this huge win-toss-bowl-first trend that has swallowed most captains during BBL06, which was shocking enough, but then the Sunil-Narine-opening-batsman experiment proved that these wacky ideas do indeed have a best-before date.

Aaron Finch tried a few different partners to push the score along – Cameron White, Tom Cooper, and Callum Ferguson all teased in the support role – before Finch ultimately got sick of mistiming the hell out of everything and holed out for 57. From there, red-Melbourne bumbled, nicked, and clubbed their way to 170, which has generally been enough at the SCG.

Or it ‘had’ been enough. The Sixers did the chasing thing pretty comfortably all the way through, with all of the top five bats making solid contributions to the cause. With nine required off the last six balls, and with six wickets in hand for the Sixers, the BBL cutting edge department took over for the betterment of the game…

James Pattinson played the role of bowler. Brad Haddin played the role of batter, but forgot his lines first ball and played and missed. Nine off five, and strap yourself in, kids, this is going to be brilliant. Pattinson runs in, Haddin swings the bat like a cutlass, and it’s four over point. Five off four, and wait for it, this is going to be great.

Pattinson… Haddin… pulls behind square for two… NO BALL! FREE HIT! Two off four, and this is going to be easy! How will they find drama in this now?

Pattinson… Haddin slashes high, and Jordan Silk starts running like Usain Bolt. They turn for two, just as Cooper takes the catch on the rope, and what’s this? The Sixers are celebrating!

“What are they celebrating for? Who’s the next bat?” Finch asks the umpires.

“But Aaron, I made the ‘helicopter’ action above my head – you know what that means, right?”

“Oh…”

What a finish. What innovation. Obscure stats have nothing on pure confusion.

Tuesday: Adelaide Strikers 8/152 lost to Melbourne Stars 8/153 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
So how do you follow a thriller like that? Well, in the Strikers’ case, you limp to one-fifty after being sent in and hope for the best. Guaranteed formula for a thriller, isn’t it. And yet, it nearly worked.

It all started so well for the Strikers, too, with Ben Dunk bombing bowlers back over their head like he was still playing golf with Ricky Ponting after their morning tee time. But then he started spraying them worse than any weekend hacker or even your humble correspondent, and when he holed out in the seventh over, the brakes were well and truly on the Strikers’ innings.

Brad Hodge tried, Kieron Pollard tried. Jono Dean got a few away, including the Strikers’ first boundary in what felt like thirty overs, but then tried too hard and found a bloke in green on the boundary. Anyway, somehow they found 150, when 135 looked like it might’ve been a good score for them.

In reply, the Stars dined out on part-timers in the first three overs, which meant that Ben Laughlin had to come on and start bowling at the death… in the fourth over.

In the brutal search for drama, the Stars managed a 4/18 top order collapse from what was a comfortable start. But then – brilliant! Pollard can’t bowl with tape all over his bowling hand, ‘get it off’, Kevin Pietersen and David Hussey requested; only that one umpire said it was fine while the other one said it wasn’t, and just as it was looking like Pollard was getting angry and BBL06 had its Dean Jones-Curtly Ambrose moment… they just kind of forgot about it and got on with the game. What actually happened really didn’t match the headlines the next morning.

And then they nearly lost. After his exploits with the ball in the final over the other night, it made perfect sense that Ben Hilfenhaus would win this game in the last over. With the bat. He had to endure Michael Beer finding his most heartily-applauded run ever, but he got the job done with a couple of balls spare. Long live The Hilf.

Wednesday: Perth Scorchers 5/156 defeated Brisbane Heat 129 at the ‘Gabba, Brisbane
Take a couple of the leading run-scorers in the competition out of the contest, and what do you get? One of the better bowling displays defending a low total this season, in fact.

Michael Klinger single-handedly propped up the Perth Scorchers’ innings, courtesy of a chronic lack of partners capable of staying with him and building scoreboard pressure on the Brisbane bowlers. Not that the Heat didn’t try to help – Brendon McCullum and Joe Burns managed to run into each other, complete a catch, and then run it over the boundary for four.

Though Klinger was caught on the boundary by Nathan Reardon in the end – and I mean ‘on the boundary’ literally; you can’t tell me some part of Reardon foot wasn’t touching the boundary as he took the catch and regained his balance.

Perth added 39 from their last four overs, and then hoped like hell 156 would be enough to bowl at.

And it was plenty, in the end. 136 would’ve been plenty, even, as the Scorchers took regular wickets and the Heat just couldn’t put a partnership together. Mitchell Johnson showed he’s still got some wheels and even bowled a maiden along the way, while AJ Tye was surprised to learn he’d taken just the second hat trick in BBL history, taking the last Brisbane wicket for the win, and ruining the night for a Gabba-record BBL crowd.

The way all hat tricks should be celebrated, if we’re honest.

Thursday: Melbourne Renegades 4/222 lost (can you believe?!?) to Hobart Hurricanes 8/223 at Docklands, Melbourne
The Renegades threw down a massive gauntlet to the rest of the competition, with all their batsmen firing them to the highest innings score in Big Bash League history.

Normally, an Aaron Finch fifty would dominate the highlights reel, but all the red-Melbourne top six got going – 21 fours, 9 sixes, adding 132 from the last ten overs, and 48 from the last three. Tom Cooper has threatened to unleash for the last five years and finally delivered an unbeaten 53 from 24 balls. 223 to win mean that even if Hobart equalled their best score this summer, they’d still lose by 23.

And losing two wickets in the first 14 balls would hardly have been part of the Hurricanes’ plans. Tim Paine and D’Arcy Short started the season very well, but much like the ‘Canes themselves, really haven’t fired as a pair since their second game.

But they might’ve found a gem in Ben McDermott (114 from 52 balls), youngest son of Craig, who displayed an impressive array of shots and plenty of hitting ability, too. In making the first BBL century by a Hobartian, McDermott’s ton in 47 balls was the third-fastest in competition history, and fell short of Luke Wright’s highest ever BBL score by just three runs. Crazier still, when McDermott was going, 222 suddenly didn’t look enough!

Just as they were becoming favourites, though, Sunil Narine trapped McDermott in front, and that Hogg bloke took two more himself to knock the wind out of the Hurricanes’ sails. George Bailey then started finding the boundary, and incredibly, Hobart needed just 22 from the last 12 balls. What a finish we were headed for.

And what a finish we got! Webster and Bailey holed out from the fourth and sixth balls of the 19th over, leaving 16 to win from the last over. Cameron Boyce was run out second ball, bringing Stuart Broad to the crease, still needing 14 from four.

3 wides, 2, 4, 4… scores level! Finch brings the field in, calls for the helmet, and… asks Peter Nevill for his box?!? And Nevill handed it over! That actually happened, people; watch the replay.

Last ball… field is up. Broad… tries to whip through midwicket… and gets a leading edge!

‘Topes win!

A record chase to knock off a brief record BBL total, leaving the Renegades in danger of missing the semis on the back of the Twenty20 equivalent of the 438 ODI game in Johannesburg. It really is a funny old game.

BBL06 table after Game 24
SCORCHERS 8, HEAT 8, SIXERS 8, STARS 6; Hurricanes 6, Renegades 4, Strikers 4, Thunder 4.

Next block of games
Saturday – Sydney derby return leg, SCG
Saturday – Perth Scorchers vs Melbourne Stars; the WACA, Perth
Monday – Adelaide Strikers vs Melbourne Renegades, Adelaide Oval
Tuesday – Melbourne Stars vs Brisbane Heat, MCG
Wednesday – Sydney Thunder vs Adelaide Strikers, Sydney Showground