Hobart: Melbourne Renegades finally got off the mark in WBBL 12 with one of the strangest finishes the competition has seen, beating Hobart Hurricanes by four wickets off the very last delivery at Bellerive Oval on Wednesday. Chasing 155, the Renegades finished on 155 for 6 in 19.5 overs, sealing a first win of the season with one ball remaining — and only after a no-ball that nobody in the ground had expected.
The Hurricanes, batting first after the Renegades chose to bowl, posted 154 for 7 from their 20 overs. Captain Nicola Carey top-scored with 62 from 43 balls, and Chinelle Henry added a rapid 36 from 18, but the innings never quite got away from a disciplined Renegades attack. Renegades captain Sophie Molineux was the pick of the bowlers, taking 4 for 22, a haul that also brought up her 100th WBBL wicket, while Georgia Wareham took 1 for 23.
In reply, the Renegades looked in complete control for much of the chase. Opener Hayley Matthews anchored the innings with 59 from 44 balls, and at 101 for 1 in the 13th over the visitors were cruising towards a comfortable win. Then the game turned. The Renegades lost five wickets for 37 runs, and with the chase suddenly in the balance, the Hurricanes dragged themselves back into a match that had looked gone.
The finish was pure theatre. Needing five runs from the final over, the Renegades were reduced to 138 for 6, and the equation came down to five runs required from the last two balls. Deandra Dottin held her nerve, edging Carey for a four past slip off the fifth ball to level the scores at 154. Then came the final delivery: Dottin missed, wicketkeeper Lizelle Lee took the ball standing up to the stumps, and the players began to ready themselves for a super over. Replays, however, showed Lee had taken the ball just in front of the stumps, and the umpires called a no-ball — handing the Renegades the winning run and a victory that had looked like a tie only seconds earlier.
There was one more twist in the tale. The Hurricanes had already been hit with a fielding-restriction penalty for not bowling their 20 overs in the specified time, leaving them with only two fielders outside the circle at the death. Molineux, named Player of the Match for her four-wicket spell, had set the win up with the ball, and Matthews had kept the chase on track with the bat, but it was Dottin’s calm at the end — and that rarest of rules — that decided it.
The result leaves the Hurricanes winless at the bottom of the ladder after three games, with an injury concern over Henry adding to their worries. For the Renegades, it is a first win built on their two most experienced players standing up when it mattered, and a reminder that in this league, no game is over until the final ball is actually legal.
