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BBL 10 | Thunder vs Renegades: Sydney's power-packed performances blow off Melbourne

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Sydney Thunder made light work of the batting lineup of Melbourne Renegades and handed them a massive defeat by 129 runs in the 14th match of the Big Bash League (BBL). Thunder were in supreme form in Canberra and put out a complete team performance, across all departments of the game, and left the Renegades toothless in chase of a big score.

For Thunder, the stars of the show were leg spinner Tanveer Sangha, who took four wickets for only 14 runs in his 3.2 over bowling effort, and Oliver Davies who blasted 48 runs off 23 balls to keep the momentum going for his team.

The Renegades were given a steep target of 209 runs to chase and the experienced opening pair of Shaun Marsh and Aaron Finch could not get going against the new ball pair of Adam Milne and Daniel Sams. But the big wicket of Marsh was scalped by Nathan McAndrew, who is keeping his stocks rising with every game.

The next man in, Sam Harper, started to get the Renegades back into the game as the duo took 13 runs off Adam Milne in the first five balls of his spell. But the Kiwi got the better of Harper on the last ball to clog back the momentum.

After the end of powerplay, Callum Fergusson introduced Tanveer Sangha and he was himself at short cover to catch one of the best batsmen in the Renegades batting line-up - Aaron Finch - when the Aussie ODI captain tried to power a shortish delivery of Sangha through the off side.

The next set of batsmen, Beau Webster and Rilee Rossouw, tried to take the game to Thunder. But it wasn’t the Renegades' night at the Manuka Oval as Sangha accounted for Webster in his next over. The problem got deeper when Chris Green had Rossouw caught slog sweeping in pursuit of a higher required run rate.

The jolts were too much to handle for the Renegades and when Sangha came back to dismiss Mohammad Nabi and Green accounted for Imad Wasim, the night was set to be longer for the Renegades, who have now lost three of their four matches in the league so far.

The men in red and black could last only 12.2 overs while Thunder plundered 209 runs. It emphasized the kind of rout the team suffered in both departments and it might have left their skipper Aaron Finch looking back on his decision to field first.

The Thunder were off to a splendid start as the opening pair of Alex Hales and Usman Khwaja took full toll of the listless bowling from the new ball bowlers of the Melbourne side. Khwaja was particularly severe on Peter Hatzoglou and took him for 6 runs to provide a solid platform for his team. Finch tried to slow down the pace of the game by introducing Imad Wasim but Hales was up to the task and sent the left-arm spinner for long journeys over the fence.

By the end of the powerplay, Thunder were already at 50/0 and both Hales and Khwaja were looking in devastating form. By the time Khwaja was sent back to the pavilion, courtesy a screamer by Zak Evans at the end of the sixth over, The Sydney-based team were already at a dictating position with the score reading 71/1. Hales quickly followed Khwaja to the dugout but the next man in, Oliver Davies, was looking in menacing form and treated all Renegades bowlers with disdain. He smashed four sixes off Mohammad Nabi and when Finch brought Will Sutherland to check his hitting, he too was greeted with a big hit over the midwicket fence. However, the right-armer got the better of Davies on the third ball of his third over with a searing yorker.

At the other end, Callum Ferguson struggled to get going and could only score at a strike rate of 100, but Sams and McAndrew made sure that the team finished strongly with the bat. Kane Richardson tried to bring momentum in Renegades' favour as three wickets fell in the 19th over. But McAndrew came hard at Zak Evans to slog him for three sixes to lead the Thunder past 200-mark which ultimately proved too steep for Renegades to reach.

On the back of this one-sided win, Thunder has surged to the top of the points table with three wins out of four games while the Renegades have been relegated to the bottom half of the points table.

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