BBL09 1st Match: Report

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BBL 9 kickstarted with Brisbane Heat and Sydney Thunder, in beautiful colors (teal and lime), locking horns at the Gabba.

Thunder won the toss and decided to bat first and this decision looked pretty good when Khawaja hit 2 boundaries of his first three deliveries. On his fourth, though, he was trapped plumb in front by Josh Lalor only to be not given out by the umpire. 

In his next over, Lalor got the better of him by challenging him with a short ball after a couple of full ones and a slower one. Khawaja pulled but couldn't clear the big boundary on the legside. 

Hales, also, was made to pull the ball towards the legside and he too fell in that trap, top-edging an easy catch for the square leg. Soon, Gilkes joined join his fellow teammates in the quest of clearing the legside boundary. 

Callum Ferguson, on the other hand, didn't look disturbed by this and continued to find his gaps. 

Ross paid the price for reverse sweeping Swepson, and so did Daniel Sams by leaving a huge gap between pad and bat Swepson's googly to crash into the stumps. 

Some quickfire runs from Chris Green and boundaries from Callum Ferguson made sure that Thunder reach a total of 172.

There was a lot of hype for the exciting English opener, Tom Banton, and his first two gigantic sixes really proved why. He sent a couple of long balls into the big legside boundary of the Gabba. But soon, spin bowling got the better of him when he came down the pitch and went through with an ordinary shot straight into the hands of the fielder. Max Bryant fell in a similar fashion after hitting a couple of boundaries. 

Chris Lynn found the hands of his opposite captain and Heat started to collapse. Renshaw provided some hope but it soon vanished when he couldn't clear the rope trying to slog sweep. 

Ben Cutting provided some late blitz but it was all too hard for Brisbane to win the match from there and they lost by 29 runs in the end. 

Top Scorer: Callum Ferguson 73(44)