Hobart Hurricanes beat Melbourne Stars by 63 runs after a red-hot 107 runs innings by New Zealand’s Rachel Priest. Hobart made 152 batting first and the Stars folded for 89 in a botched chase. Hobart has notched the team’s first victory after losing the first two games, meanwhile, Melbourne has lost two in a row.
Hurricanes began terribly for the third time in a row, losing three wickets for 39 by the seventh over. Even the in-form Richa Ghosh struggled and made just two in ten balls. It looked like the team will repeat another sub-120 runs performance but once Rachel got going she didn’t look back. Priest first took Mckenna’s over to the task, scoring 14 runs in the over, shooting up Hobart to 57 in 9 overs
Then later, she hit Day for two sixes in the over in the team’s 14th over, but the biggest over for Hurricanes turned out to be the nineteenth one when Priest hoicked Kim Garth for two sixes and then Stalenberg nailed two fours in a row to take 21 off the over. Rachel then hit the first two balls of the last over for a six and four, completing her memorable century, and she finished the innings with 107 runs off 68 balls. Priest scored 70% of Hurricanes runs.
Stars looked damaged after Rachel’s carnage, and more than the scorecard, it seemed to be an after-effect of getting taken over by a single player that hovered during the chase. The team lost two wickets for three runs and from there, the highest partnership only amounted to 27 runs.
Meg Lanning made the highest score of just 25 runs for the team and seven players fell for single-figure scores. Ruth Johnston took four wickets for just eight runs, however, Strano once again did the major damage up-front, claiming both the openers. Rachel Priest remained the obvious choice for the Player of the Match after scoring the fourth-highest runs in league history.
