Adelaide Strikers 165 for 6 (Short 60, Ross 35, Siddle 2-21, Milne 2-32) beat Melbourne Stars 150 for 9 (Harper 48, Pope 3-21, Short 2-23, Overton 2-44) by 15 runs
Legspinner Lloyd Pope earned redemption and late inclusion D’Arcy Short featured as Adelaide Strikers beat the Melbourne Stars, struggling early in the season, by 15 runs at Adelaide Oval in the BBL.
Short (60 off 42 balls) was not scheduled to play, but was called up on Friday after calf discomfort took Chris Lynn out of action. The only significant support for Short came from Alex Ross (35 off 26) as the Strikers made 165 off six in their first home game of the campaign, before the Stars responded with 150 off nine.
Opener Sam Harper (48 for 44) kept the Stars in the game, but known big hitters Marcus Stoinis (27 for 19) and Glenn Maxwell (15 for 5) produced cameos rather than major innings.
The Strikers’ spin trio took four of the first five wickets and six in total, with Pope (3 for 21) leading their attack. Pope showed great resilience after suffering the humiliation of losing 31 runs in a match-turning loss in the Strikers’ first match defeat to the Sydney Thunder in Canberra on Tuesday.
He took Harper’s key wicket and was well supported by fellow legspinner Cameron Boyce (1 for 31) and fingerspinner Matthew Short (2 for 23).
Maxwell, playing his first BBL match of the season, threatened to take control of the match after reverse-sweeps for six off his second and third balls off Boyce. But speedster Henry Thornton (1 for 16) trapped the big lbw batsman, backing up his spin trio superbly.
The game also produced one of the best catches in BBL history, with England’s Ben Duckett catching a marvellous leaping right-footed snare to extra cover to eliminate D’Arcy Short. That was Duckett’s only highlight of the evening as the powerful opener was trapped lbw for a golden duck by the third ball of the innings thrown by Matthew Short.
All but two of D’Arcy Short’s first 28 runs came from the boundaries, with a six and five fours. Ollie Pope made only eight off ten balls before being caught off-guard by an errant ramp attempt.
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