Sunday, 4 January 2015

Stars soar, Renegades hit record low

Bowlers do the damage as Cameron White's men move off the bottom of the BBL ladder
KFC T20 BBL|04, Round 4
MLR
MLS
Melbourne Stars have kept alive their faint KFC T20 Big Bash League finals hopes, tearing through the Renegades for a record 112-run win in the Melbourne derby.
The Stars set the Renegades 170 for victory but the home team's chase was over before it seriously began, losing 5-9 in an extraordinary early collapse.
With the sharp Jackson Bird at one end and spinner Michael Beer at the other, the Stars were poised for victory after four wickets in just 20 balls.
Matt Wade (4), Aaron Finch (8), Callum Ferguson (0) and Ben Rohrer (1) all fell cheaply to the pair in front of a 33,430-strong crowd.
Key Renegades wicket-taker Dwayne Bravo (3) and his West Indian teammate Andre Russell (9) followed soon after.
Such was the brutality, Stars captain Cameron White set a Sheffield Shield-style field to finish, with several fielders in catching positions.
The Reds lasted just 12.4 overs to finish with 57, short of the previous worst BBL total of 69, made by Perth in 2012.
Every Stars bowler took a wicket, with Bird (2-12), Beer (2-14) and Boland (2-10) best of the bowlers.
The win is the MCG-based side's first of the season.
 
The blow-out victory helped the Stars poor net run rate, which might have been even greater if not for Bravo's effort with the ball.
Bravo danced and strutted his way to 3-22, including the wickets of Kevin Pietersen (25 off 28), James Faulkner (7 off 10) and Glenn Maxwell (10 off 8).
His jig and wave to accompany Faulkner's wicket was topped off by an aeroplane celebration before Aaron Finch had even caught Pietersen.
Brisbane Heat batsman Dan Christian said it best when he tweeted: "I get the feeling mother cricket doesn't care much for dancing or aeroplanes".
Maxwell, bowled first-ball when leaving in his last outing, was moved down the Stars order to six, but showed his confidence wasn't totally gone with a nice reverse sweep boundary.
David Hussey was a casualty of Renegades bowler Andre Russell, retiring hurt after being hit in the hand.
Hussey said his hand was "a bit cracked" and would require scans.
Luke Wright (39 off 21) top scored for the Stars.
 
Beer, announced as man of the match, said it was a win to savour in hot and sticky conditions.
"If you bowled in the right areas it was tough to score and we showed that," he said.
"The way our batting group started really put them under the pump and they had to fight their way back into the game.
"We felt if we bowled well it was going to be hard to get.

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