Heat Beat Hurricanes by 10 Wickets With 86 Balls to Spare: Harris and Knott Finish It in 5.4 Overs

Some chases are a test of nerve. This one was over before the Hurricanes had time to feel nervous. Needing 87, Grace Harris and Charli Knott took 17 off the first over, 18 off the second and 20 off the third, and by the time anyone at Bellerive had settled into their seat the Heat were 62 without loss at the end of the powerplay. Knott finished it with back-to-back fours in the sixth over. It was 5.4 overs in all, the earliest completed chase in WBBL history.

For a Heat side that had gone 706 days without a win before this month, it was a fourth victory in ten days. For the Hurricanes, the reigning champions, it was a sixth defeat in six, and the heaviest yet.

The Heat chose to bowl and had the game in their hands inside four overs. Bassingthwaighte had Lizelle Lee caught by Sianna Ginger in the second over, Lucy Hamilton removed Rachel Trenaman, and Bassingthwaighte then bowled the captain, Nicola Carey, for 4. The Hurricanes were 11 for 3 and made only 17 in the powerplay. Ginger, given two overs, bowled Maddy Green and Chinelle Henry in the same spell, and at the drinks break the score was 42 for 6. Sarah Glenn's four overs of leg-spin cost 16 and took two more. Six Heat bowlers were used, five of them took wickets, and nobody went for more than 6.25 an over.

Then came the chase. Harris reached fifty off 21 balls with eight fours and two sixes, and the opening stand was worth 88 off 34 balls. The overs went 17, 18, 20, 7 and 13 before Knott ended it two balls into the sixth. The 62-run powerplay was a WBBL record. Between them, Harris and Knott hit 12 fours and four sixes. The Hurricanes, across 17.5 overs, hit six boundaries.

Coming into this game, the Hurricanes' story was of near misses: two final-over defeats at Bellerive, three in a row by four wickets. This was different. The top three made eight runs between them, the middle order went at a run a ball or slower, and the highest score came from Lauren Smith at No. 9, who made 20 before Knott bowled her. Carey, whose 66 not out had nearly won Tuesday's game, was gone in the fourth over. There was no partnership worth 25.

The kind reading is that a side this experienced does not stay this bad for long, and that the close losses were real evidence of a team near its level. The harder reading is that the confidence has gone. Six defeats from six for the champions means the season now has to be about one win, not the table.

Bellerive's first two games this season had been slow, low-scoring affairs, and the Hurricanes batted as if this one would be too, struggling to get the ball off the square. The Heat's reply suggested the pitch was much better than 86 made it look. The ball came on nicely for the openers, and the same surface that had produced six boundaries in 107 balls produced 16 in 34. Taking the new ball at 3:40 PM, the Heat's seamers also found a little early movement, which they used far better than the Hurricanes' did in the evening.

Harris made the noise, but Bassingthwaighte made the game. Her first two wickets, Lee and Carey, were the two batters the Hurricanes most needed to stay in, and both had gone before the powerplay was done. She came back to have Heather Graham caught for 13, ending the one innings that looked like steadying things. Figures of 3 for 25 do not usually win the award in a 10-wicket win, but this was a match decided by the first four overs of the first innings, and those were hers.

We leaned to the Heat, narrowly, and they won, but there was nothing narrow about it. We said the game would not be one-sided, and that if Lee or Carey went big the Hurricanes could get off the mark; the two made seven runs between them. We picked out Knott and Glenn for the Heat, and they delivered: Knott took a wicket and hit 34 not out off 12, Glenn went for 16 in four overs with two wickets. We thought around 150 was par and that the toss winner might chase, which the Heat did. The total of 86 was a long way short of anything we imagined.

The Heat are third on eight points from six games, two behind the Sixers and Scorchers, and their net run rate has jumped to 1.154. They play the Thunder at Allan Border Field on November 19. The Hurricanes, bottom on 0 from 6 and a net run rate of -2.087, play the Scorchers on the same day, then host the Thunder at Bellerive on November 21.