The Brisbane Heat defeated the Hobart Hurricanes by six wickets with ten balls to spare in a BBL fixture played at the Gabba (link).
The Heat chased the Hurricanes total of 126 for 9. This set a rate of 13 runs per partnership for the Heat to win. This was the third game in BBL 2019-2012 that produced a rate of 13. (The other two games were the Sixers v Scorchers and the Hurricanes v Sixers. The Sixers batted second in the Scorchers’ game and won with 5 overs to spare. The Sixers batted second against the Hurricanes but the Hurricanes were able to defend their 129 runs and won by 25 runs. In this game the Sixers lost 5 wickets for 9 runs in the middle order.)
My ggplot of the Heat v Hurricanes game:
Brisbane stayed above the required rate for the entire innings despite losing 3 wickets for 11 runs (link). The chart shows the impact of the 60 run partnership between Ben Cutting and Jimmy Peirson.
I think this is a good example of a close BBL game. The expected rate was low (the median rate for the tournament is 16 as was the score in the game (the median scores for the BBL are 163 winning team, 145 losing team). Two of the three games chasing a rate 13 have led to wins.
Photo Credit
Ben Cutting (Brisbane Heat, Twitter)
