Knight loses day to Stars as Hurricanes fight hard

West Park, Burnie lies next to the ocean and this game ebbed and flowed. Both teams were able to ride early pressure to ride the waves and see both batting sides fight back. It was the Stars who would win by five wickets with one ball to spare.

Melbourne Stars won the toss and chose to bowl. It looked a good decision as they dismissed two of Hobart Hurricanes overseas superstars back in the hutch inside the powerplay.

Anabelle Sutherland may still only be 17 but she dismissed Smriti Mandhana inside the first over. The Indian international looked to dominate the bowling from her second ball. Mandhana could not get the ball over the diminutive Alana King at mid-off to be dismissed without scoring.

Sutherland finished with 2 for 30 also accounted for Hayley Matthews and at 3 for 35 the Hurricanes were looking for someone to offer them some stability. Heather Knight along with Corinne Hall did just that. The two batters started to put pressure on the Stars bowling attack.

Heather Knight got the better of the battle of the England internationals as Georgia Elwiss went for 29 from her three overs. Hall and Knight added 51 for the fifth wicket before Hall was bowled by Erin Osborne.

At one point a total of 120 looked as much as the Hurricanes were going to muster, but as Knight grew in confidence so did the scoring horizons of the Hurricanes.

The Hurricanes finished on 6 for 158 as Knight top scored with 82 not out from 55 balls.

The Stars had let the Hurricanes off the hook. They needed something special from one or two of their own batters to chase the total down.

When Veronica Pyke started bowling dot balls to Lizelle Lee the Stars started to try too hard to score. Lee was stumped for 2 from 12 balls it the Hurricanes were in the ascendancy.

The stars found themselves at 3 for 23 it looked like it was game over. The Stars batters Osborne and Mignon du Preez are experienced players and they never panicked. They ran hard and turned ones into twos.

The run-rate to win at one stage was over ten an over. Positive running, they started to turn the tide. The pair added 130 for the fourth wicket and when Osborne was out for 67 from 46 balls the game was almost won.

Du Preez was unbeaten on 59 from 38 balls at the end as the Stars made it two wins from two. Again, it doesn’t look too far off for the Hurricanes to win their first game of the campaign.