Sophie Devine cracks rapid 89 to set up big Adelaide win

After Lizelle Lee had given the latest edition of the tournament the perfect start with 102* off 56 balls in Melbourne Stars’ win over Sydney Sixers, Sophie Devine, the New Zealand champion, added to the fun by smashing a rapid half-century in Adelaide’s win over Brisbane.

Devine, whose demotion in the batting order during the White Ferns’ disappointing campaign at the ICC Women’s World T20 2018 was widely questioned, opened with Suzie Bates for Adelaide. Bates fell early for just 1, run out, but Devine hit six fours and five sixes in her 55-ball 89 to take Adelaide to a strong 172/7.

Brisbane fought hard through Beth Mooney (63*) and captain Kirby Short (62*), but Megan Schutt and Sarah Coyte, who had economy rates of 5.75 and 4.25 respectively, made sure they didn’t get too close.

“It's a funny one. Looking back now when you see they've got two batters not out, you do wonder could they have had more of a crack,” Devine said afterwards.

“But I think we contained them well. We bowled well against them so maybe they felt that they couldn't get away. You always want to start the competition well. It gives you that bit of momentum to get things going.”

Interestingly, it was back-to-back half-centuries for Devine – she had hit 51 in 22 balls against Ireland after returning to the top of the order for New Zealand’s last game of the World T20.

If the first match of the second day saw lots of runs being scored, including three half-centuries, the second one was a low-scoring affair in which Rachael Haynes’ 27 was the highest individual score.

Asked to bat first, the Renegades put up only 98/8 with the experienced Rene Farrell returning 3/17. Thunder then cruised to the target in 16.5 overs for a six-wicket win despite pacer Tayla Vlaeminck’s superb 4/29, with Haynes top-scoring.

New Zealander Amy Satterthwaite, leading the Renegades, admitted afterwards that the team’s batting remained a cause for concern, and hadn’t yet improved enough since the team’s sixth-place finish last season.

“We addressed it looking back at last season, that it let us down in patches. At times, we were really good, but it wasn't consistent enough and Powerplays were probably something we needed to address,” she said.

“We tried to resurrect that today with a couple of different things but it didn't come off. It's something that we need to keep looking at and keep trying to improve if we want to be successful.”