It was a dream Big Bash League debut for Englishman Saqib Mahmood as he destroyed the Brisbane Heat top order with his opening spell to hand his team Sydney Thunder an easy win in the 11th edition of the Australian premier T20 competition.
Bowing his first over in his opening spell, Mahmood dismissed Chris Lynn and Ben Duckett in a span of just four balls to rock the Heat even before its chase of 197 really got underway. If that was to be seen as an anomaly and one-off experiences that a bowler on league debut picked two wickets in his first over, the Lancashire pacer made sure that it wasn’t anymore in his second over.
In his second over and the innings’ third, the right arm pacer dismissed Sam Heazlett on the very first ball and, Max Bryant got run out on the second ball and then Mahmood removed skipper Jimmy Peirson on the fifth ball to sink Heat to the rock bottom. At the end of the third over, the team in ocean blue was under all sorts of trouble at 15-5 all thanks to the brilliant bowling from Mahmood.
Thankfully a partnership developed between Tom Cooper and James Bazley and the duo steered Heat past the 50 run mark. However, spinners Chris Green and Tanveer Sangha removed both Cooper and Bazley in two consecutive overs to throw Heat under the rails at 60-7 where they were looking down at scoring their lowest ever BBL total in history.
However, 79 runs stand for the eighth wicket, the highest ever in BBL history by Xavier Bartlett and Mark Steketee got the Brisbane side past 130. When the partnership was eventually broken at 139, Steketee was removed on 33 by Daniel Sams. The last two wickets fell in the next three balls as the team was all out on 143, losing the game by a huge margin of 53 runs. Bartlett who remained unbeaten on 42 was the top scorer for the Heat.
Earlier in the evening, after winning the toss and asking thunder to bat first, Heat wasn’t really able to justify the call as Thunder openers Alex Hales and Matthew Gilkes got off to a decent start, putting on 55 for the first wicket within the powerplay. The batters to follow, Jason Sangha and Sam Billings too batted well with Billing going on to score a brilliant 64 off just 27 balls at a strike rate of more than 200.
Thanks to those runs from the top four, Thunder scored 196-7 in their 20 overs. For Heat, Bartlett, Steketee and Mitchell Swepson picked two wickets each.