Adelaide Strikers ended Perth Scorchers’ perfect start to WBBL|12 with a commanding 51-run win at the WACA Ground on Saturday, posting Adelaide’s highest-ever WBBL total before leg-spinner Anesu Mushangwe tore through the hosts’ batting with a career-best five-wicket haul.
After captain Tahlia McGrath won the toss and chose to bat, the Strikers were steady rather than spectacular early on, reaching 25 for 1 after four overs and 106 for 3 after 14. Emma de Broughe provided the early stability with 51 from 40 balls, including eight fours, sharing a fifty stand from 38 balls with Laura Wolvaardt. Then the innings exploded. Wolvaardt and Madeline Penna added 76 from just 36 balls, and the pair plundered a WBBL-record 40 runs from the two-over Power Surge as Adelaide clubbed 96 from the last six overs to reach 202 for 4, passing 200 with one ball remaining.
Wolvaardt finished unbeaten on 83 from 45 balls, while Penna smashed 44 from just 19 deliveries with six fours and two sixes. Chloe Ainsworth, with 1 for 23 from four overs, was the only Scorcher to escape the late onslaught.
Perth’s chase never recovered from a devastating opening burst by Mushangwe, recalled to the Strikers XI for this match. The Zimbabwean struck two enormous blows in her first over, removing captain Beth Mooney for 7 and former skipper Sophie Devine for a duck, the latter to a low catch by Wolvaardt that the television umpire agonised over for several minutes. When she bowled Katie Mack for 14 with a superb slider, Mushangwe had 3 for 1 from seven balls and the Scorchers were reeling.
Freya Kemp made 28 and Mikayla Hinkley struck 41 from 30 balls with five fours. But Hinkley’s resistance ended in the 14th over when Madeline Penna pulled off a superb boundary catch off Megan Schutt, and Mushangwe returned as Perth took the Power Surge in the 16th over to bowl Alana King for 12. The Scorchers’ own Surge produced just one run and cost them another wicket, and when Mushangwe claimed Chloe Ainsworth as her fifth victim, Perth were finished on 151 for 9. Her figures of 5 for 11 from four overs earned her the player-of-the-match award.
It was the Scorchers’ first defeat after five straight wins, and it cost them top spot. Sydney Sixers, still unbeaten in five matches, now lead the table on net run rate, with Perth second on 10 points and Brisbane Heat third. The Strikers, with three wins from five matches, climbed to fourth on six points, while defending champions Hobart Hurricanes remain winless at the bottom after six defeats. Adelaide next meet the Sixers at Karen Rolton Oval on Tuesday.
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