Heat Beat Hurricanes by 4 Wickets — Lily Bassingthwaighte's Opening Burst Decides It Before the Hurricanes Can Begin

Two sides came to Allan Border Field looking to build something. The Heat had one win, the Hurricanes none, and the game was close to settled inside the first four overs. Lily Bassingthwaighte took three wickets in that time, two of them off consecutive balls, and the Hurricanes, at 13 for 3, spent the rest of the evening trying to get back to a total that would ask a question.

They never quite did. 116 for 9 was not enough, though the Hurricanes, to their credit, made the Heat work for it. Four Heat wickets fell for 27 runs in the middle of the chase, and it took an unbroken 30 from Annie O'Neil and Sianna Ginger to close it out with 10 balls to spare. The Heat now have two wins in a row. The Hurricanes have four defeats from four.

The Heat chose to bowl and the powerplay went for 14 runs and three wickets. Bassingthwaighte caught and bowled Lee off the fifth ball of the second over, then bowled Athapaththu with the very next delivery. In the fourth over Pelle was caught by Charli Knott. Rachel Trenaman and Heather Graham then rebuilt with 43 off 43 balls, but Lucy Hamilton bowled Graham at the end of the 11th over and Sarah Glenn bowled Trenaman in the 13th. Orla Prendergast had Chinelle Henry caught behind by Georgia Redmayne, and Hamilton came back to take two more at the death. Every Heat bowler went at six an over or less except Catherine White and Ginger, who bowled one over each.

The chase began as if it would be over early. Grace Harris hit five fours in her 24 off 16, and the Heat had 41 for 1 at the end of the powerplay and 50 up in the sixth over. Then the middle overs got tight. Prendergast was bowled by Graham, and at 69 the Heat lost two wickets off the last two balls of the tenth over: Redmayne run out by Lauren Smith, and Yastika Bhatia lbw to Smith. Bhatia had overturned an lbw on review two overs earlier; this time the review did not save her. When Hamilton fell at 89 for 6 in the 15th over, the Heat needed 28 more with four wickets left.

O'Neil made sure the wobble went no further. She finished 32 not out off 28 balls with five fours, and Ginger stayed with her for 10 not out. Together they added 30 without being parted and brought up the win in the 19th over.

The Hurricanes' innings was decided in the first four overs. Losing Lee and Athapaththu in successive balls left the middle order to rebuild, and Trenaman and Graham did that steadily rather than quickly. They reached 50 only in the tenth over. Maddy Green's 24 off 22 gave the innings some late shape, but there was no partnership after the fourth wicket to push the total into the 140s. The Heat also gave away 12 extras, and the Hurricanes still could not reach 120.

With the ball, the Hurricanes deserve credit. Graham took 2 for 20 in four overs and Smith 1 for 13 in three, and from the eighth over to the 15th they took four wickets while the Heat added only 33, and had them thinking. Lee, keeping wicket, caught Knott off Henry in the second over. But a total of 116 left almost no room for error, and O'Neil gave them none to work with.

Allan Border Field under lights was not easy to bat on for long. Both sides lost wickets in clusters, and no batter on either side passed 32. Scoring was quickest early in the Heat chase, when Harris attacked the new ball, and slowest in the middle overs of both innings. Bowling at the stumps paid: four of the Hurricanes' nine wickets and three of the Heat's six were bowled or lbw.

4-0-16-3, and the three wickets were Lee, Athapaththu and Pelle, the Hurricanes' top three. Two of them came off consecutive balls in her first over, and by the fourth over the Hurricanes were 13 for 3. In a low-scoring game, the first four overs carried the weight of the whole evening. She bowled two of them, and she made them count for everything.

Our preview said the Heat might start slight favourites and that whichever top order fired would decide it. Both points held up: the Heat won, and the gap between their 41 for 1 and the Hurricanes' 14 for 3 in the powerplay was the game. We expected Sarah Glenn's leg-spin against Lee and Athapaththu to be the key early battle; in the end it was Bassingthwaighte who removed both, and Glenn took 1 for 23 later on. We also said one big innings from Lee or Athapaththu might not be far away; they made 2 and 0. We built much of the Hurricanes' case around Nicola Carey, who was not in this XI, and our Heat XI had Kato-Stafford where Catherine White played. We named Redmayne as the batter the Hurricanes most needed to remove; she was run out for 4.

The Heat move to two from four and fourth on the table on net run rate. The Hurricanes, bottom with four defeats from four, go home to Bellerive Oval to play Adelaide Strikers on November 10, still looking for a first win.