IPL riches and KFC eating contests: Mitch Owen’s future after a 39-ball BBL hundred

Mitch Owen has IPL riches awaiting him. Paydays in numerous Twenty20 leagues around the globe, too.

And a KFC eating contest to settle things once and for all with Craig Simmons, the man who Owen, a previously unheralded tornado of Tasmanian power-hitting, matched while leading Hobart’s seven-wicket canter against Sydney Thunder to their first Big Bash title.

“His life’s just changed” was Mark Waugh’s apt summation of Owen’s astounding 39-ball hundred in Monday’s BBL final.

Owen struck 108 in 42 balls, including 11 sixes to make a mockery of the Thunder’s genuinely competitive target of 183. Fifty-six runs he took over mid-wicket alone, clubbing each mid-pitch offering closer and closer to the Derwent River lying in wait beyond the boundary.

Simmons, who pummelled the original 39-ball ton for the Scorchers in 2014 after a decade of domestic cricket, is at the ready whenever someone approaches his record these days thanks to an inevitable flood of text messages.

An enduring cult hero, Simmons dines out on the pre-game chicken roll, large chips and 600ml Coke he downed on his way to the WACA Ground, having already worked an apprentice shift that day with Western Power.

When Owen matched him, Simmons was quick to welcome him to the “sub 40-ball 100 club”, in the same way Jason Gillespie reminds far more accomplished batters of his famed 201 not out.

“Maybe we can take that player of the match KFC voucher and settle it over an eat-off,” Simmons signed off on social media.

Just as only cricket nuffies knew of Simmons a decade ago, few were aware of Owen prior to the summer’s start, and none expected this.

His fourth season with the Hurricanes was signed off only a few weeks before this BBL edition began, the previous three campaigns yielding 13 games as a lower-order, fast-bowling all-rounder.

“Who is Mitch Owen?” stories were just as prominent as the “Mitch Owen belts greatest innings in BBL history” recaps as soon as the game was won.

Owen is 23, hails from Kingston south of Hobart (population about 12,000), and has played a dozen Sheffield Shield games in the past two years.

All too perfectly, his “chubby” teenaged self is immortalised on one of the walls of Ninja Stadium, celebrating as now-Australian selector George Bailey hit the winning runs of a game in 2015.

Mitch Owen in the crowd as a teenager as George Bailey celebrates a Hobart Hurricanes win in 2015.Credit: Getty

Owen reckons he never missed a Hurricanes game as a kid, telling cricket.com.au that they’re “some of my fondest memories as a young cricketer – I remember getting a nice photo with Xavier Doherty after he took a hat-trick, and another game Ricky (Ponting) actually gave me his gloves.”

Now, he stands at a strapping 195 centimetres and 100kg. The long levers that send balls flying over the boundary can also see him push 130km/h with ball in hand.

His surprise ascension to open the Hurricanes batting this season initially saw him throwing the bat, and kitchen sink, at everything. But amid the carnage of Monday night’s hitting was a flurry of largely controlled, conventional shots.

Mitch Owen hits another six. Credit: Getty Images

Slogs to cow corner dominated, but they were almost all cleanly, safely hit, helped by the Thunder bowling regularly into his hitting arc.

Owen’s game-turning, life-changing 108 underscored the most impressive of BBL campaigns, with the century making for a tournament-high 452 runs. Of the top 10 run-scorers, only Glenn Maxwell (strike rate of 186) came close to Owen’s 203.

His hitting in the final sent a sold-out crowd into raptures and English football-style chants of ‘Mitch-ell Ow-en’. But when pressed on the boundary by Fox Sports broadcasters, he had eyes only for a breakthrough victory.

“It was pretty special, but all I really want is these next 30 runs and it’ll be even more special,” Owen said.

“I’ve got a lot of friends and family out here and it’s something I’ve dreamt of for a long time.”

When it was put to him later that Twenty20 franchises around the world will be calling with blank cheques, Owen responded with “well, that’d be nice”.

Not for nothing either, Waugh made the point that “Australian selectors will have to be taking notice of Mitch Owen’s batting in this tournament. It’s as good a hitting as I’ve seen for a long time.”

As one of the modern game’s most stylish batters observed of this year’s most surprising find, “his life’s just changed”.

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