New Adelaide Striker Katie Mack can’t wait to take your bowlers for more runs now she’s finally found the perfect running mate
After four seasons with Melbourne Stars, Katie Mack is relishing a much-needed change of scenery after joining the Adelaide Strikers for WBBL05.
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FINALLY! The Adelaide Strikers have found someone as quick between the wickets as their middle-order batter Bridget Patterson — and it is sure to cause hell for fielders in the Women’s Big Bash starting this weekend.
That someone is Katie Mack - a veteran WBBL campaigner who played 53 matches across four seasons with the Melbourne Stars, before being offered a change of scenery with Adelaide.
Last week, Mack and Patterson batted together at a trial T20 game against the ICC’s Global Development Squad in Melbourne and surprised each other — and their team-mates — with just how quickly they could run.
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“It was a bit of a shock, because I’m not really used to someone else calling the runs and getting through as quick as me,” Mack said. “I’m always going: ‘Oh, I can make it’, but before I say yes I’ll concentrate on whether the other person can make it. So there were a few I hit last week where I thought: ‘That’s not a run’, and then Bridg would say yes and I was like: ‘Shivers!’.
“After we finished our innings, I came off and said to her: ‘I enjoyed that so much’. It will be fun trying to take (bowlers) for extra runs.”
Strikers captain Suzie Bates agreed that it was a happy surprise to watch from the sidelines as the two ran between the wickets.
“It’s going to be a nightmare for some of the fielding teams,” she said.
Mack, 26, has slotted into the Strikers’ line-up well, also filling the team’s need for batting depth in the middle order - a hole that became obvious last season.
Mack said fitting in seamlessly had given her added confidence heading into Saturday’s opening game against Melbourne Renegades at Karen Rolton Oval.
However, having played against the Strikers for four seasons, it was strange to now be looking at her former foes as friends.
“Slotting into a team of girls that you’ve versed your whole career, is a bit daunting … you go from analysing their technique to try to get them out and then all of a sudden they’re a person,” she said, adding that Bates and big-hitter Sophie Devine were two players she was happy to no longer call foes, as well as allrounder Alex Price.
“Alex is known to talk a bit of sh*t on the field, and when you’re on her team, instead of finding it annoying, you’re actually egging her on a bit,” Mack said with a laugh.
“They’re a close, tight-knit group, but very welcoming so I’m enjoying it and I’m personally excited to play.”
