The first tranche of eight WBBL games have been played, and unlike last year all the teams have played two games each. But to be honest we are not much the wiser as to who will fill the top four spots, as each team has won one game and lost one game. So what have we learnt from the first few games...
Fact 1
Meg Lanning is not invincible. In her two knocks to date she has scored 33 and 14.
Fact 2
Harmanpreet Kaur might just be though! Invincible that is. She has taken to the WBBL like a duck to water, with two very classy knocks of 47* and 30* against the Stars and then she added 4/27 with her slightly slingy off-breaks. Her 6 over extra cover was the shot of the tournament so far.
Fact 3
Ellyse Perry cannot stop scoring runs. She is the top WBBL02 run-scorer to date with 87 runs accumulated against the Heat. Deandra Dottin took a bit of a liking to her bowling in the first game, but with bat in hand she looks awesome.
Fact 4
Deandra Dottin is an enigma! In game one she flayed the Sixers to all parts to hit 60* off 44 balls and win the game for the Heat. In game two, she had just lofted Sarah Aley for a towering 6 over mid-on. Mid-on was dropped to long on and promptly caught Dottin two balls later as she tried the same thing. Doh!
Fact 5
18 year old Sophie Molineux at the Renegades looks like one to watch. She almost beat the Strikers single-handedly in their second meeting. First she took 4/18 (best bowling figures in the tournament to date) with her slow left arm spin, plus she took a catch and then she ran out Charlotte Edwards with a direct hit with one stump to aim at. She then came in to bat at 5 and smashed 28 off 18 balls to ensure the Renegades secured their first points of WBBL02. She won't have many better days on a cricket pitch!
Fact 6
Charlotte Edwards has been run out both times in her first two innings.
Fact 7
The highest team score to date is the Stars' 147/8 against the Thunder.
Fact 8
The lowest team score to date is 83/9 by the Heat against the Sixers.
Fact 9
The bowler with the best economy rate to date is Sarah Aley for the Sydney Sixers at 3.87 runs per over from her eight overs so far. She also has four wickets, which makes her the equal highest wicket taker, along with Molly Strano, Molineux and Kaur.
Fact 10
Emma Inglis pronounces her surname "Ingles", "as in Pringles" she tells me!
MD
13/XII/16
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Very interesting indeed! It's been a great opening set of matches and evenly poised league now. The live coverage (and video highlights for those games we don't get to see) are a big bonus and very welcome.
ReplyDeleteAbout the last Stars -Thunder match - the Stars batting floundered a bit this time, and that score was probably say 15 below par. Thunder actually left it quite late to get those last runs in their chase, and seeing they were only 2 wickets down, were making quite slow progress. No need to worry though when you have Harmanpreet who can seemingly hit boundaries for fun! I think Kaur is benefiting from still being a bit of an unknown, what with the BCCI's reluctance to let "their" players take part, and she's been coming in at the right times - but will she get "found out" as the competition progresses?
Hazell must have had a bit of a shock getting hammered in her last over. Her figures of 1-25 were still not bad though! I think she's done pretty well overall, seeing as she was a late call-up.
The high-score of 147 won't be around for too long, I think! Expect a team to get into the 160s or higher pretty soon.
On the downside, a couple of the teams look a bit short of international quality players. Without Sciver and when Lanning doesn't stay in, Stars look short of batting; and Renegades probably have a worse batting lineup than either Diamonds or Lancs Thunder did in the KSL. There are a few notable absences in star players, some of them English. The Indian inclusions help make up for it a bit.
I think overall though I prefer the set England assignments and 3-overseas player setup of the KSL, rather than the weird "marquee" system the WBBL uses. Although, the WBBL is probably better for development of Australian youth and fringe players.