BBL: Melbourne Renegades finally taste success as Sydney Thunder lose way with bizarre tactics
It’s taken an eternity but defending champions Melbourne Renegades are finally on the board after a strange bowling decision catches up with Sydney Thunder.
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The Melbourne Renegades may be the defending champions but after losing their first nine matches this season they had become the team every other team in Big Bash could count on knocking off.
Everyone that is except for the Sydney Thunder, who were never in the hunt after the Renegades belted 34 off the last two overs to reach 4-172.
The Thunder were 3-31 from 5.5 overs when the first light showers forced the players off the field and when they returned they needed to score at 13 an over which was beyond them.
A victory would have elevated the Thunder back into the top five.
But Instead, they’re stuck in sixth and at risk of missing the playoffs with a tough run of matches to go, starting with Saturday’s derby against the Sixers.
“The Renegades are a good team and they were going to turn up and win somewhere,” Thunder’s Alex Ross said.
“We think we’re pretty close, those are the results you want to to go your own way and when they don’t it’s frustrating because the table could look so different but these are the things that do happen in tournament cricket and we need to keep winning the other games to push ourselves up because the best team will win the comp.”
SYDNEY THUNDERSTRUCK AGAIN
Sydney Thunder’s luckless season is now in danger of going right off the rails and they can’t blame Canberra’s fickle weather this time.
Forced to settle for a share of the points after their last match at Manuka Oval was cut short because of bushfire smoke, the Thunder lost by 12 runs to the Melbourne Renegades under the DLS system when Wednesday night’s game was briefly interrupted by rain.
Set a revised target of 135 off 14 overs, the Thunder fell short of what they needed when they finished on 7-122 despite a thrill-a-minute half-century from Ross (51 off 27 balls) that provided the briefest glimmer of hope.
STRANGE BOWLING TACTICS
The Thunder probably would have been chasing a smaller revised target if not for a bizarre decision by skipper Callum Ferguson in the final overs of Melbourne’s innings.
Daniel Sams — who is the leading wicket-taker in the competition this season — still had one over up his sleeve but was not used for either of the last two overs.
For the last over, Ferguson gave the ball to South African Chris Morris, who already had the worst economy rate after conceding 22 from his previous two overs — and the Renegades took full advantage, helping themselves to 18 more runs, with two sixes and a boundary.
Morris did get the wicket of Sam Harper, who top scored for the Renegades with 52 off just 38 balls after Shaun Marsh laid the foundations with a solid 47.
Harper said he was surprised Sams didn’t bowl the last over but said it was the Thunder’s call.
“I’ll leave their strategy to them,” Harper said. “He’s been a wonderful bowler this whole campaign, that’s all I’ll say on that.”
Ross said he didn’t know why Sams didn't complete his full four overs but said he backed Ferguson’s judgment.
“That’s a good question. I’m out at the deep point fence so you might have to find Callum for that question,” Ross said.
“He’s been a brilliant all season but often as captain those are the toss ups that you think on (how they) match up and all these different things go into it and obviously today it wasn’t Samsy.”
TURBULENT CAMPAIGN
March was caught by Morris in the deep off the bowling of Nathan McAndrew, whose fluctuating fortunes perfectly summed up the Thunder’s rollercoaster season.
A civil engineering student at the University of Wollongong who comes from the same Illawarra suburb as Brett Lee, McAndrew got the prized wicket of Marsh and held a difficult low catch to remove Beau Webster.
But McAndrew also dropped a sitter at mid-wicket in the fifth over and suffered the ignominy of having the umpires call for a replacement ball after Webster hit him for a monster six which bounced off the roof of the Sir Donald Bradman Stand and into the traffic on Canberra Avenue and was never seen again.
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