.png)
The Wellington Blaze and Firebirds have both had victories in their opening games of the Super Smash.
Georgia Plimmer’s 41 with the bat was the highlight of the batting innings for the home side as she grabbed her highest T20 score, passing her previous high of 34.
Earlier, Jess McFayden and Rebecca Burns had got their side off to a good start with a 29 run opening stand, including a second over that went for 11 runs off Hayley Jensen.
Just when it looked like the openers for Wellington were getting their side off to a good start, Emma Black struck in her third over for the day with McFadyen falling for 14.
Debutant, PJ Watkins then had Burns out, bowled for 20. She soon had two more wickets with Amelia Kerr (7) and Leigh Kasperek both falling in the ninth over of the innings to leave the Blaze at 55/4 after 9 overs.
Kate Chandler and Plimmer got their side back into the game with a crucial 38 run stand for the fifth wicket. The wicket of Chandler did cause another derailment in the Blaze innings with Jess Kerr falling seven runs later for six, Eden Carson with the wicket.
Caitlin King then fell in the 18th over for a quick 12 from 7 balls and Tash Codyre only adding two runs to leave the Blaze at 120/8 with 1.3 overs left.
Nicole Baird and Plimmer added a further 20 runs in the last 9 balls, with Baird finishing on 10 from 5.
Wellington ended on 140/8 in their 20 overs with Plimmer top scoring with 40 and Burns making 20. Watkins finished with four wickets whilst Oldershaw got 2.
The Sparks had a solid opening stand between Suzie Bates (25) and Bella James (9) to see them through to 37/1 after 5.4 overs. However, this would be one of the only bright sparks in the Sparks innings as they regularly lost wickets throughout.
Leigh Kasperek (3/25), Jess Kerr (2/15) and Amelia Kerr (2/17) bowled excellently throughout the middle overs to restrict the many scoring opportunities that the Sparks had.
Olivia Gain added 10 runs at number three and Polly Inglis added 15 runs at number five but lost their wickets to Kasperek and Melie Kerr respectively.
With Felicity Robertson’s 24 being the only major contribution, the Sparks quickly fell from 98/6 when Robertson to 117/10.
Watkins (5), Carson (3), Black (9), Oldershaw (2) added 19 runs between them and the Blaze were handed a 23 run victory to kick their season off with a win.
In the Men’s fixture, Tim Robinson’s 139 opening the batting was the highlight of the day for the Firebirds.
After losing Nick Greenwood on the third ball of the fixture for a golden duck, Nick Kelly and Robinson then added 125 runs for the second wicket.
They attacked the majority of the Otago Volts bowlers with Dean Foxcroft (1/52) and Matt Bacon (1/64) being taken to by Robinson especially.
Foxcroft however did get the breakthrough in the twelfth over and then Dale Phillips ran out Muhammad Abbas for 2 at the end of the same over.
Jesse Tashkoff (11) and Nathan Smith (19) were able to add runs to the scorecard and often gave the strike back over to Robinson so that he could continue on his exploits.
28 runs came off the bat in the last over with Robinson going from 111* to 139 before he tried to go for one too many sixes and found the hands of Ben Lockrose in the deep to give Matt Bacon a wicket.
Wellington finished on 234/5 with Robinson top scoring and Kelly making 48. Travis Muller had the most economical figures as he went for 16 runs in three overs.
Jake Gibson got Otago off to a quality start with a 48 run opening stand with Rutherford who added 6 runs.
Phillips only added 2 runs and the Firebirds quickly found themselves two down.
Once Dean Foxcroft (29) and Gibson’s partnership finished in the 9th over, the Firebirds were quickly gaining momentum. Wickets kept on coming with Max Chu (17), Llew Johnson (9), Ollie White (3), Ben Lockrose (5), Andrew Hazeldine (1) all falling.
With the Volts collapsing from 114/4 to 144/9, Bacon and Muller then added 16 more runs with the Volts finishing on 160/10 in 16.5 overs.
Gibson top scored with 56 (31) and Foxcroft got 29 (15). Peter Younghusband took figures of 3/33 (4) and Iain McPeake got 3/35 (3.5).
Comments