Anika Learoyd has carved out a career-best innings as the Sydney Thunder began its WBBL campaign with a convincing six-wicket win over the Melbourne Renegades in the season opener.<\/p>\n
Learoyd made 48 off 37 balls after off-spinner Georgia Voll (4-26) did most of the damage in the first match of a double-header at Junction Oval today.<\/p>\n
The Melbourne Stars host the Hobart Hurricanes in the night game.<\/p>\n
In at first drop, after Voll made 25 off 18, including the Thunder’s only six of the match, Learoyd hit nine boundaries and put on 62 with Heather Knight in a match-winning third-wicket partnership.<\/p>\n
The pair took 28 runs from the power surge, putting the Thunder within sight of victory.<\/p>\n
Knight (29 not out off 22 balls) and Nadine de Klerk (12no off six) finished the job, guiding their team to 4-140 with 18 balls to spare.<\/p>\n
Learoyd admitted feeling “really nervous” batting near the top of the order, but will take confidence from starting the season with a strong performance.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Voll’s four wickets and hand in a run-out were crucial in restricting the Renegades to 9-138 from their 20 overs.<\/p>\n
Renegades opener Hayley Matthews gave her side a strong start, blasting 45 from 30 balls before holing out in the deep.<\/p>\n
Matthews put on 56 for the first wicket with Courtney Webb (22 from 24), and Georgia Wareham made a handy 23 from 19, but a late-innings collapse ended their chances.<\/p>\n
The Renegades lost 5-2 in seven balls through the 17th and 18th overs as Voll wreaked havoc.<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anika Learoyd has carved out a career-best innings as the Sydney Thunder began its WBBL campaign with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[165294,64,63,740,29544,85,109024,29879,161032],"class_list":["post-945262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-anika-learoyd","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-melbourne-renegades","tag-sports","tag-sydney-thunder","tag-wbbl","tag-womens-big-bash-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945262","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=945262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}