Thunder avenge loss to Hurricanes in WBBL
Good innings from imports Heather Knight and Chamari Athapaththu and savvy bowling from Hannah Darlington have helped Sydney Thunder avenge an early season WBBL loss to Hobart Hurricanes.
Three days after the Hurricanes won by 31 runs in Hobart, the Thunder scored a 33-run victory in a match reduced to 17 overs a side after rain delayed the start at North Sydney Oval by 30 minutes on Thursday.
Athapaththu (38 off 29) and Knight (48 off 28) helped the Thunder amass 5-146.
Hobart smashed 18 off their first seven balls, but lost 5-13 In the last few overs to finish at 8-113.
Darlington (3-16 off 4) claimed the big wickets of Lizelle Lee (18 off 22) and Heather Graham (30 off 21) and Athapaththu completed a good all-round effort by taking 1-11 of three overs of tidy spin, dismissing England star Danni Wyatt-Hodge.
England captain Knight, who missed the first game between the two teams, played some handsome shots and added momentum in the second half of the innings.
She struck 14 off the last three balls of the one Power Surge over bowled by Molly Strano, lofting the first over long off and adding two fours in the same area.
“It was really nice when you start a competition to hit the ground running and I thought ‘Atta’ was brilliant as well,” Knight told Seven and Fox.
“We managed to get in a bit of a partnership there and it set up things at the end.”
Athapaththu, who was out for a first-ball duck on Sunday, was dropped at deep midwicket on five.
Her innings included sixes over deep midwicket and long off before she fell to a remarkable one-handed low diving return catch by Strano off a fierce drive.
“I didn’t have much time to think about it, it was a tracer bullet, so pretty happy it just stuck,” Strano told Seven and Fox.
In reply, Lee clubbed boundaries off the first two balls of the Hurricanes’ chase and three in the over and Wyatt-Hodge belted a six over backward point off the first ball of the second over.
The Thunder struck back with Athapaththu having Wyatt-Hodge caught at backward point.
Nicola Carey, who scored a 50 in last weekend’s game, then chopped a delivery from Shabnim Ismail onto her stumps, a ball after the South African speedster struck her on the helmet.
Lee (18 off 22) couldn’t maintain her early impetus and was adjudged lbw the first ball after the mid-innings break, though if she had used DRS, she would have been reprieved.
A brisk fourth-wicket stand of 43 between Graham and Elyse Villani (25 off 25) gave the Hurricanes hope before they were dismissed in successive overs to trigger a decisive collapse.
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