O'Neil Steers Heat to Second Straight Win as Hurricanes' Winless Start Reaches Four

There are wins that simply add two points to a tally, and then there are wins that tell you a team has remembered how to win again. Brisbane Heat's four-wicket victory over Hobart Hurricanes at Allan Border Field was firmly the second kind. Chasing just 117, the Heat made heavier work of it than they should have. They lost regular wickets, slipped to 89 for 6, and for a while it looked as though the old habits — the ones that had produced a 706-day winless run in this competition — might creep back in. Then Annie O'Neil took charge. O'Neil finished unbeaten on 32 from 28 balls, calm where others had been frantic, and saw her side home with ten balls to spare. It was not a flashy innings. It did not need to be. With the game in the balance and the Hurricanes sensing an opening, she simply stayed there, picked her moments, and made sure the chase never slipped away. Sianna Ginger's 10 not out at the other end was the quiet partner it needed. The win was set up long before O'Neil walked out, by a new-ball spell that blew the Hurricanes' innings apart before it had begun. Lily Bassingthwaighte, still early in her WBBL career, reduced the visitors to 3 for 13 and finished with 3 for 16 from her four overs — the first time she has taken three wickets in a WBBL match. The Hurricanes never recovered from that start. They crawled to 116 for 9 from their 20 overs, a total that always looked short on a good batting surface, and so it proved. Grace Harris had earlier made 24 and Yastika Bhatia 22 in the chase, but both departed with the job unfinished, and it was left to O'Neil to close it out. Heather Graham, with 2 for 20, was the pick of the Hurricanes bowlers, but she had too little to defend. For the Heat, this was a second consecutive win, coming in the match after they had finally ended that 706-day drought. Two wins in a row does not sound like much until you remember how long the wait was. The side that could not buy a victory for the best part of two years suddenly looks like a team that knows how to finish a game. For Hobart, the picture is the mirror image. The defending champions have now lost four straight and remain winless in this season's competition, and the longer that run goes on, the heavier it gets. They were beaten here by a side that, only a week ago, was carrying a drought of its own. That is the cruelty of this tournament: somebody else's turning point is always your low point. The Heat will take the momentum and run with it. The Hurricanes, meanwhile, need to find an answer quickly, because in a short tournament a winless start does not stay a slow start for long.