Sydney Strikers beat Hobart Hurricanes by five wickets in the second game for both teams. Hurricanes made 125/9 after batting first and in reply, Sydney got home with three balls to spare. The Hobart Hurricanes lost the second game in a row while the Sixers clinched their second straight win.
Once again, Hurricanes’ top-order collapsed and the team saw three wickets falling for just 26 with Brown and Perry wreaking havoc. Richa Ghosh stabilized the innings with a run-a-ball 46 runs innings that included three sixes. Sasha Maloney did make 22 runs off 16 balls but the rest of the batting faltered except a seven-ball 11 runs not out knock by Molly Strano and Hobart could only make 125.
Ellyse Perry, Nicole Bolton, Maitlan Brown, and Radha Yadav each took two wickets, while Ashleigh Gardner turned out to be the most economical bowler for the team, claiming one wicket for just 16 runs.
The Strikers also started poorly and lost two wickets for just 14 runs with stalwarts Healy and Gardner falling early. However, Perry and the new arrival Shefali Verma dug their heels and formed a 63 runs partnership for the third wicket. Perry fell to Priest’s stumping off Strano’s bowling at the score of 77. She made 27 runs off 33 balls.
Nicole Bolton and Shefali played cautiously but with the team needing 24 runs off 18 balls, young Shefali showed her strength. She smacked three boundaries in four balls during the eighteenth over by Tanya Vlaemnick and closed the gap substantially. Strano once again claimed a wicket and sent Verma to the dugout but the batter has already put the game away through a 50-ball 57 runs effort. Strano finished with superb figures of three wickets for 19 runs in her four overs.
Afterward, Angela Reakes hit a boundary on the fifth ball of the nineteenth over and by then the Strikers needed only three of seven balls. In the first ball of the final over, Reakes got bowled by Nicola Carey, but a wide by Nicola and a single by Brown sealed the deal for Sydney. Shefali won the Player of the Match award for her match-winning effort.
