The Sydney Sixers beat the Sydney Thunder by nine runs (DLS) in a rain-shortened derby at North Sydney Oval, with Ashleigh Gardner’s 64 not out from 25 balls and Caoimhe Bray’s 4-28 keeping them unbeaten in WBBL|12.
Quick Score Summary
Sydney Sixers 2-162 (16 overs): Ashleigh Gardner 64* (25), Ellyse Perry 59* (41), Sophia Dunkley 15 (15). Thunder bowling: Lauren Bell 1-26 (3 overs), Georgia Voll 0-10 (2), Sam Bates 0-48 (4).
Sydney Thunder 10-158 (15.3 overs, DLS target 168 from 16): Laura Harris 35 (10), Nadine de Klerk 30 (24), Anika Learoyd 14 (9), Hannah Darlington 14 (8). Sixers bowling: Caoimhe Bray 4-28, Sarah Coyte 2-21, Ashleigh Gardner 2-37.
Result: Sydney Sixers won by 9 runs (DLS method), Thunder bowled out with 3 balls remaining. Toss: Sydney Thunder, elected to bowl. Player of the Match: Ashleigh Gardner.
Ten overs into their chase, the Thunder had this derby in their hands. Nadine de Klerk and Laura Harris had turned the Power Surge into a fireworks display, the score was 4-108, and 60 from 36 balls looked well within reach against an attack that had just been taken for 46 in two overs.
Then Caoimhe Bray came back.
The 17-year-old’s first ball of the 11th over, a good length around fourth stump, found de Klerk’s edge and Alice Capsey took the catch behind for 30. Five balls later Harris, 35 from 10 balls, skied a cut to point where Sarah Coyte held on. The momentum drained out of the chase, and the Thunder were bowled out for 158 chasing a DLS target of 168.
Rain shaped this one from the start. A delayed start cut the game to 19 overs a side, the Thunder chose to bowl, and Lauren Bell struck in the fourth over with a short ball that jagged back and clipped Sophia Dunkley’s gloves as she tried to pull them away. Tahlia Wilson took the catch and Dunkley went for 15.
The Sixers were 1-55 after nine overs when the rain returned. Play resumed at 16 overs a side, and during the break the Sixers retired Amelia Kerr out on 14 from 17 balls to get Gardner in with seven overs left. A bold call, but with three overs lost they needed their most destructive hitter in the middle.
It almost backfired at once. Gardner cut her first ball, from Georgia Voll, straight to point, and Harris spilled it. The Thunder paid dearly. Gardner hit five sixes in her 64 not out, and Ellyse Perry moved through the gears to finish on 59 not out from 41 balls with 11 fours. It was an awesome array of power hitting: an unbroken 98 from 42 balls, and 107 in the seven overs after the resumption for 2-162.
Too many loose deliveries let the Sixers throw their hands at almost everything. Sam Bates went for 48 from four overs; only Voll, with 0-10 from two, kept it tight.
The Thunder needed better than 10.5 an over, and Bray struck early: Phoebe Litchfield stepped across to ramp her to fine leg, missed, and was bowled for eight. Voll survived on seven when Perry, at mid-on, got only one hand to a tough chance off Lauren Cheatle.
In Bray’s second over Anika Learoyd (14) hit straight to Perry at mid-on and took off, and Perry’s direct hit at the bowler’s stumps beat her. Voll then got a leading edge that skied to Kerr at cover. Heather Knight (6) hit Coyte high and very straight, and Gardner covered good ground for a diving catch low to the turf.
At 4-56 the chase needed something special, and de Klerk and Harris supplied it. The Power Surge (a two-over fielding restriction the batting side chooses when to take) brought 52 runs from 16 balls in their stand, highlighted by Harris’s massive reverse-sweep six off Kerr. Gardner’s first over cost 24 and Kerr’s second 22.
Bray’s double strike ended that, and Gardner finished the job. Wilson (12) skipped down and drove in the air to Bray at cover. Then came the moment of the match: Jemma Barsby hit Gardner long and high towards deep midwicket, and Bray leapt over the rope, pushing the ball back while still airborne to Cheatle for the catch. Barsby made a duck and the Thunder were 8-128.
Coyte bowled Hannah Darlington for 14, the ball angling in on a good length to hit the top of middle as Darlington swung across the line. Somehow the Thunder still had a slim chance, with Bell (11 not out) and Bates adding 21 for the last wicket to leave 10 needed from four balls. But Bell hit the next ball straight to Gardner, whose return to Coyte ran out Bates for 10 at the bowler’s end.
Bray’s 4-28 was her second four-wicket haul in a derby, after last season’s hat-trick and 4-15 against the Thunder at Drummoyne Oval. But Player of the Match went to Gardner, whose afternoon brought 64 not out, 2-37, a diving catch and the final run-out.
Wibble Sports tipped the Sixers second and the Thunder third, and at four from four the Sixers are making that look cautious. The Thunder’s lesson is simple: the Gardner drop on nought cost 64 runs, and the wickets kept coming. Still, this was a valiant chase, and Harris, de Klerk and a fighting tail showed a side that will trouble plenty of teams.
The Thunder head west to face the Perth Scorchers at the WACA Ground on Wednesday 11 November, while the Sixers meet the Melbourne Renegades at Junction Oval on Thursday 12 November.
