Six and Out, First Ball Feats, and a Daily Half-Century
The new BBL season is only three games old, but plenty of interesting stats have already popped up.
IMAGE: Moises Henriques smashed an unbeaten fifty in the Sydney Sixers opener (Getty Images)
The 14th season of the KFC Big Bash League is underway, so let’s take a look at the three matches that have been completed thus far and see what has been happening!
Match 1 – Perth Scorchers (4/150) defeated Melbourne Stars (9/146) by six wickets
New skipper Marcus Stoinis and international allrounder Tom Curran were the leading run scorers for the Melbourne Stars, with both players being dismissed after scoring 37. This was the 25th time a team had two or more players finish as joint top scorers. The last time the Melbourne Stars achieved this feat was on December 11 2020, when Glenn Maxwell and Hilton Cartwright both scored 46 runs.
Perth’s international signing Finn Allen had a short but entertaining stay at the top of the Scorchers’ innings, hitting Adam Milne for six off his first ball before being bowled on the very next delivery. As legendary statistician Swamp pointed out, Allen joins Ben Laughlin, Rashid Khan, and Paul Walter as players with a two-ball innings of six and then out. However, this was the first time it happened in the first over of an innings. Laughlin did it in the last over, while Khan and Walter both did it in the 19th over.
Veteran bowler Peter Siddle became the 11th player to take 100 BBL wickets when he had Keaton Jennings caught behind off the last ball of his first over. Rashid Khan (98) and Jhye Richardson (97, after picking up three wickets on Sunday night) are also rapidly approaching the 100-wicket mark.
The Scorchers ultimately cruised to a six wicket win at home, marking the 63rd BBL match where a team won by six wickets and giving the Scorchers their 24th win at Perth Stadium.
Match 2 – Sydney Sixers (5/172) defeated the Melbourne Renegades (7/169) by five wickets
Jake Fraser-McGurk got the Renegades off to a fast start, crunching Ben Dwarshuis through point for a boundary on the first ball of the innings. The Rooster had a breakthrough season last year, scoring, 257 runs in eight innings, and garnered much attention for his big hitting style. But Monday night was just the fifth time in 33 BBL innings where he hit a boundary off his first ball.
But Fraser-McGurk’s innings didn’t last long, with the BBL’s all-time leading wicket taker, Sean Abbott, dismissing the younger player with the first ball of his bowling spell. This was the ninth time Abbott has taken a wicket with his first legal delivery.
Tim Seifert, one of the Renegades’ international signings, became the 20th player to score a half-century on debut. Seifert brought up his 50 off 39 balls, but was dismissed three balls later having added five runs to his total.
Match 3 – Sydney Thunder (8/183) defeated Adelaide Strikers (8/182) by two wickets
Strikers skipper Matt Short extended his already impressive lead on the “opening both the batting and bowling in the same game” statistic, with last night being the 35th time he has done this. However, it wasn’t his best performance with either the bat, making just seven runs – but at least he bounced back with a respectable 1/16 off two overs.
Young batter Sam Konstas kept the half-century train going, with his first BBL 50 (off just 20 balls) on debut setting the record for the fastest 50 by a Thunder player. Konstas is now the youngest player in BBL history to score a half-century.
This was the fourth 50 in three matches across the league (Cooper Connolly on Sunday, Seifert and Henriques on Monday, and Konstas last night). But three consecutive days with a score of 50 or more is well short of the record, which is 16 days in a row. This has happened twice, from December 31 2019 through to January 15 2020, and from January 4 to 19 2023.
The BBL continues tonight with the Melbourne Stars hosting the Brisbane Heat at the MCG.
The timeframe of this stat is limited based on what data are freely/easily available and/or accessible. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you spot any errors in what I have presented.