The Adelaide Strikers opened their WBBL|12 campaign with a 21-run win over the Melbourne Stars at Karen Rolton Oval, as Laura Wolvaardt’s 70 set up 2-185 and Amanda-Jade Wellington’s 3-28 broke open a chase that had been cruising.
Quick Score Summary
Adelaide Strikers 2-185 (20 overs): Laura Wolvaardt 70 (50), Tahlia McGrath 43* (36), Madeline Penna 36* (13). Stars bowling: Kim Garth 1-27, Annabel Sutherland 1-40, Charlie Dean 0-25.
Melbourne Stars 7-164 (20 overs): Rhys McKenna 40 (31), Meg Lanning 32 (24), Naomi Stalenberg 32 (25). Strikers bowling: Amanda-Jade Wellington 3-28, Eleanor Larosa 2-23, Sophie Ecclestone 2-25.
Result: Adelaide Strikers won by 21 runs. Toss: Melbourne Stars, elected to bowl. Player of the Match: Amanda-Jade Wellington.
For eight overs the Stars looked like making 186 seem modest. Rhys McKenna and Meg Lanning had raced to 0-77, barely troubled and scoring at close to 10 an over. Then came the ninth over. McKenna, on 37, was dropped at cover off Wellington. Next ball, Wellington trapped Lanning in front for 32. Three balls later Amy Jones lofted to mid-on and Sophie Ecclestone leapt to pull in a spectacular one-handed grab above her head. Within six balls a let-off had turned into 2-79, and the game had changed shape.
It was a fitting twist, because dropped catches had already shaped the afternoon. The Stars won the toss and bowled, and Wolvaardt, on just 9, was put down at midwicket by Charlie Dean off Annabel Sutherland. That proved costly. The Proteas captain was outstanding at the top of the order, using her feet to the spinners to create scoring chances, and made 70 from 50 balls with nine fours.
Maia Bouchier helped her put on 54 for the first wicket, hitting five fours in a brisk 30 off 21, before mis-timing a drive straight back into the body of Sutherland, who held a sharp caught and bowled. Tahlia McGrath then settled in for an 82-run stand with Wolvaardt. The Strikers captain was strong off the back foot, finding the gap between cover and point, and the Stars went after her with the short ball throughout. It nearly worked: on 24 she top-edged a Kim Garth bouncer out to deep midwicket, only for Danielle Gibson to drop it. McGrath finished 43 not out from 36.
Wolvaardt fell to the first ball of the 18th over, swinging at a Garth full toss and caught by Sutherland diving forward at mid-off. That brought in Madeline Penna as a pinch hitter, and she looked to hit every ball to the boundary. Her 36 not out from 13 balls, with four fours and three sixes (several of them big hits square on the leg side), helped the Strikers take 49 from the last 17 balls. Danielle Gibson’s last two overs cost 31, and Sutherland’s last went for 18.
The Stars’ attack never really looked like stopping it. Their spin options are not quite the class of other teams, and all-rounder Dean was the most threatening of them, conceding just 25 from her four overs. Garth’s 1-27 was the best of the seamers. The broader problem was creating chances. Both wickets owed more to Strikers batters taking risks than to anything the bowlers built, and the two catches the Stars did create went to ground. At 185, the Strikers had a total comfortably above par.
The Strikers had the opposite problem: almost too many spin options. Anesu Mushangwe, Ecclestone, Penna and Wellington all bowled, and while Mushangwe (0-34 from three) and Penna (0-20 from two) were taken apart by the openers, Wellington, named Player of the Match, was clearly the pick. Eleanor Larosa looked good with the new ball, swinging it into the right-handers.
The Stars were 3-92 when Ecclestone bowled McKenna for an excellent 40 from 31 balls in the 11th over. Sutherland (29 off 19, including a six) and Naomi Stalenberg kept them in touch with a 32-run stand, but with 62 still needed from 32 balls the scoreboard pressure was building, and it produced a steady stream of wickets. Wellington had Sutherland caught by Bouchier, then Larosa struck twice in the 16th over, with Danielle Gibson caught by Penna and Dean bowled for a duck. The Stars had slipped from 4-124 to 6-127 in seven balls. Larosa finished with 2-23, and Stalenberg’s 32 from 25 ended when she was caught by Larosa off Ecclestone (2-25) in the 19th over. The Stars finished on 7-164.
For the Strikers, it was a start that showed their depth. Three batters scored quickly around Wolvaardt’s innings, and they had a spinner for every situation. The early overs of the chase, though, are a reminder that their attack can leak runs against a top order in full flow. For the Stars, now 1-1 after their opening win over the Hurricanes, the top three remain a real weapon, but a thin bowling attack and two expensive drops cost them dearly.
The Stars host the Perth Scorchers at Junction Oval on Monday, 2 November. The Strikers face the Brisbane Heat in an interstate home game at Drummoyne Oval, Sydney, on Thursday, 5 November.
