Scorchers Beat Stars by 6 Wickets — Sophie Devine Does It With Ball and Bat, and Perth Stay Perfect

The Stars came into this game with one win and a familiar problem: when Meg Lanning goes, the runs tend to go with her. At North Sydney Oval, Lanning batted into the 18th over and made 56. The rest of the order added 73 between them, and that left the Stars with a total of 136, which looked small on this ground even before the Scorchers started batting.

Sophie Devine made sure of it. She had already taken two wickets, including Lanning's, and then she hit 55 off 24 balls at the top of the chase. The Scorchers needed only 15 overs. They are four from four and top of the table. The Stars have one win from five.

The Stars chose to bat and the Scorchers kept them quiet from the start: 19 runs in the powerplay. Fatima Sana bowled Rhys McKenna in the seventh over, Amy Edgar trapped Amy Jones lbw in the ninth, and Devine bowled Annabel Sutherland in the 11th. Mooney ran out Naomi Stalenberg, Edgar had Dani Gibson caught by King, and when Devine had Lanning caught by Chloe Piparo in the 18th over the Stars were 105 for 6.

Alana King did not take a wicket, and it hardly mattered. Her four overs cost 12 runs, and Chloe Ainsworth's three went for 13. Seven overs for 25 runs on a small ground is a squeeze that every batter after Lanning felt.

The chase was over almost as soon as it began. Katie Mack was bowled by Sophie Day in the third over, but the Scorchers still had 37 for 1 at the end of the powerplay. Devine reached fifty off 21 balls, and she and Mooney put on 72 off 31 balls, Mooney contributing 5 of the first 50. Day had Devine caught by Kim Garth, and Kemp and Mooney fell soon after, but Mikayla Hinkley and Piparo added 28 without trouble to finish it in the 15th over.

Lanning played well. She hit ten fours in her 56 and survived a review in the third over. But the Stars reached 50 only in the ninth over, and from 63 for 2 at drinks they lost four wickets for 42. Georgia Prestwidge's 23 off 11 balls, with two sixes, and an unbroken 31 with Charlie Dean at the end gave the total some shape, but it was 20 or 30 short.

With the ball, Day took 2 for 34 and Sutherland bowled Freya Kemp for 2, but once Devine got going in the powerplay there was no total to defend. The Stars have now lost four of five, and the middle order behind Lanning and Sutherland is still the question.

In the second game of the Sunday double-header, after the rain earlier in the day, the pitch was fair for both sides. The Stars' slow start owed more to the Scorchers' bowling than to the surface, as Devine's 24-ball innings showed later. The short boundaries helped the Scorchers' chase: they hit 16 fours and three sixes and needed only 90 balls.

3-0-18-2 and 55 off 24. Devine bowled Sutherland, who made 57 in the Stars' opening game, and then took Lanning, the best, when she was looking to accelerate. Then she went out and settled the chase in seven overs, with eight fours and three sixes, her fifty off 21 balls. Some players win a game with one discipline. Devine won this one with both before the 8th over of the second innings was done.

We leaned to the Scorchers, though not by much, and they won with 30 balls to spare, more comfortably than we expected. We named Lanning against King as the match-up that mattered; King did not get her wicket, but her 4-0-12-0 meant Lanning had no one to bat with at a run a ball. It was Devine who removed Lanning. We also picked Mooney against Sutherland with the new ball; Sutherland did not get Mooney, though she bowled Kemp. Our predicted Scorchers XI was the one that played.

The Scorchers stay top with four wins from four and a net run rate of 1.659. They host Sydney Thunder at the WACA on November 11. The Stars, seventh with one win from five, play Brisbane Heat at Junction Oval on November 12.