Sam Harper Goes Mental At The Marvels

Melbourne Renegades have defeated Hobart Hurricanes, courtesy to Sam Harper. When he came out to bat, there was a lot of pressure on him. His previous performances weren’t good enough, three ducks in five innings with a high score of 21. It doesn’t justify his talent, it seemed that if there was an opportunity for him to express him on big day, it was it at his home ground.

Melbourne Renegades is in absence of appointed captain Nic Maddinson. The captaincy has been handed to Aaron Finch who has wealth of experiences. And as soon as he took over, he has won back to back matches for the Renegades who seemed to struggle when they lost four matches in a row.

In BBL 12, when the Renegades faced the Hurricanes last time at Hobart, the former failed to chase down 122 runs in 20 overs. So at Marvels, it was really a chance for Melbourne Renegades to equalise the matter and keep riding on winning track.

After winning the toss, Aaron Finch decided to bowl considering the situation that under the lights, it’s easy to chase down any score. Hobart Hurricanes had a wonderful start and both openers put up 49 runs for the first wicket.

Things slowed down from there on. No key partnerships was getting in view and everytime the Hurricanes tried to build some momentum, they lost key wickets. Matthew Wade was runout after scoring 20 off 17 balls. Tim David, too, was runout by his own mistake. Tom Rogers could do nothing wrong as he plucked stumps two times, running out key players of Hobart Hurricanes.

With some late fireworks from Faheem Ashraf, the Hurricanes managed to post 162 on board. It was not entirely batting friendly wicket so the match seemed hanging in balance at half-way stage.

Blitz By Martin Guptill and Sam Harper

Melbourne Renegades couldn’t have dreamed of better start. After sensing a couple of deliveries, Martin Guptill took the charged and dispatched everything full to the boundary. He scored 36 off 19 balls before losing his wicket to Riley Meredith. But the Hurricanes striked back to back and managed to dismiss captain Aaron Finch a couple of overs later.

From thereon, it was one man show. Sam Harper who looked to struggle scoring only 12 off first 16 balls went berserk after 10 overs break. On a pitch where every other batsman seemed to struggle, he easily cleared the boundary, scoring 89 off 48 balls with 7 sixes and 4 fours.

Unfortunately he missed his first BBl century but it was some innings by Harper. In the first power surge over, he went ruthless against Joel Paris and accumulated 28 runs which was game set match for Melbourne Renegades.