Tasmania’s wait for its first Big Bash League title goes on after the Hurricanes were blown away by a Weatherald storm.
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Adelaide Strikers opening batsman Jake Weatherald hit the third biggest total in BBL history, and his team’s highest individual score of 115, en route to a franchise record total of 2-202.
Three days after silencing 52,960 fans in Perth, the Hurricanes couldn’t quite do it again to 40,732 in Adelaide as the chase finished 25 runs short, handing the Strikers their first title.
With Tasmania deprived of the opportunity to play in national football, soccer, basketball and, well, almost any other sporting competition, the Hurricanes were looking to add to the three Sheffield Shield and four one-day cup titles already claimed by the Tassie Tigers.
But the team’s roller-coaster season finally hit the buffers courtesy of player of the final Weatherald.
The 23-year-old left-hander was simply magnificent. Hogging 70 of his team’s 120 deliveries, he smashed nine of them to the rope and another eight over it.
Taking a particular liking to Adelaide Oval’s shorter square boundaries, Weatherald notched up his third straight BBL half-century, raced past his previous highest score of 65 and smashed the Strikers’ record individual contribution.
Such was his dominance that when the second-wicket partnership reached 50, Travis Head had contributed just three.
That partnership would eventually end in the penultimate over on 140, when George Bailey caught Weatherald off Dan Christian, leaving D’Arcy Short with the measly consolation of retaining the BBL’s highest ever score of 122.
Head (44 off 29) played his part and rode his luck – at one stage dropped twice in quick succession by Tom Rogers, off his own bowling, and Short, in the deep.
And when Colin Ingram claimed a six and four off Jofra Archer in the final over to reach 14 off just six balls, it confirmed the Hurricanes would be chasing 200-plus.
Inevitably, all six Hurricanes bowlers took a pasting, with Rogers’ economy of 7.50 the pick of the bunch.
Bailey’s men responded well with the bat, Bailey in particular.
Combining well with Short, the captain helped the team to its best powerplay score of BBL07.
But when Jake Lehmann remembered how to catch, and Bailey departed for 46 off 33, the Hurricanes’ worm took a disarmingly downward trajectory.
Facing a run-rate nudging 14.00, big hitter Short opted to start big hitting.
Named player of the tournament and, even more impressively, making Ricky Ponting’s team of the season, BBL07’s leading run-scorer set about building on his 504 runs at 56.00.
Fresh from his T20i debut the previous night, Short added another 68, with a symetricly pleasing six fours and four sixes before his departure spelled the end for the visitors.
When Peter Siddle added Short to his earlier scalps of Bailey and Ben McDermott to complete excellent figures of 3-18 off his four overs, the Adelaide Oval roar almost matched the Gabba’s when he claimed a birthday hat-trick in his Test heyday.
Playing in their first BBL final and without the competition’s leading wicket-taker, Afghan leg-spinner Rashid Khan, the Strikers rarely looked troubled, in stark contrast to the drama of their one-run semi-final triumph over Melbourne Renegades.
Conversely, Gary Kirsten’s team could not reproduce the crowd-silencing antics of Perth’s memorable 71-run victory and, by Bailey’s own admission, bowled poorly.
Losing semi-finalists in the competition’s inaugural season, the Hurricanes had reached their second final despite having finished second-to-last for the last two seasons.
To reach both their BBL finals, the Hurricanes had to defeat the minor premiers on their own turf (after a similarly surprising win over Melbourne Stars in 2014).