Stokes admits MCG feedback ‘won’t be the best’ after chaos<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/5b8378e01a8248dfd354840ef8bd8ca867b65236.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Tom Balkin is swarmed by teammates\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n
Bowling at high speeds, Balkin looked dangerous with ball in hand but it wasn’t until the Heat needed him most that he was able to get his maiden wicket.<\/p>\n
First it was the scalp of Hasan Ali and then with just two balls remaining, Balkin forced Harry Nielsen into a top-edge and the ball was caught in the deep by Jack Wildermuth.<\/p>\n
“That’s an absolute thriller \u2026 the match had so many turns in it,” Brad Haddin said on Fox Cricket after the youngster took the match-winning wicket.<\/p>\n
“Look at the Heat around the young man – two wickets and both in his last over.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michael Hussey described it as an “unbelievable performance” from Balkin.<\/p>\n
There were some nervous moments for the Heat as they looked to defend their score of 9-179, which was largely off the back of Max Bryant’s 63 off 32 deliveries.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1820665d94871adfdbfab1c57ffadc251661274c.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Max Bryant in action for the Heat\u00a0Cricket Australia via Getty Imag<\/p>\n
Strikers captain Matt Short was looking the goods and when he was joined by the little-known Jerrssis Wadia at the crease, it appeared to be their game to lose.<\/p>\n
Wadia hit his first three balls over the rope but when his skipper departed for 63 off 39 balls, he soon followed and was on his way for a quickfire 34 off 16.<\/p>\n
The tail couldn’t wag for the Strikers and when Wildermuth took three wickets in an over, the momentum completely swung back in the Heat’s favour.<\/p>\n
But the night belonged to Balkin, who turned plenty of heads in his first BBL match.<\/p>\n
“It’s been a crazy few days,” he told Fox Cricket post-game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Balkin was thrown into the Big Bash chaos on Saturday, but the debutant walked away with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-375793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}