Melbourne Renegades leggie Cameron Boyce scooped up an unbelievable double hat-trick and 5-wickets versus the Sydney Thunder at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Renegades captain Aaron Finch won the toss and chose to bat first. Boyce entered the game in the 7th over of the game, with the score at 75/0. He surrendered just 5 runs before taking his first breakthrough wicket in the form of Alex Hales, who was collected by Unmukt Chand, the debutant and the first Indian player to feature in BBL.
He thereafter stepped in to serve the 9th over with the scoreboard at 85/1 and Usman Khawaja & Jason Sangha batting. On the first delivery, he drew Sangha out of his stance, and gloveman Sam Harper accomplished the stumping. He caught Alex Ross LBW on the hat-trick delivery and then removed Daniel Sams to clinch the double hat-trick.
Then he carried the momentum to the 3rd over to grab Matthew Gilkes, who was collected by Josh Lalor. He finished his five-wicket haul with this wicket. Thunder advanced from 80/0 to 93/5, as the 2018-19 winners produced a game-saving comeback.
Usman Khawaja maintained his Ashes form, scoring 77 runs. After eight innings, the 2015-16 champions had a score of 170/8. They were 75/0 in 7 overs, with Hales hitting on 44. The side appeared to be on track to score more than 200 runs until Cameron Boyce’s session made it tough for the squad to even reach the 170-run milestone.
Six batsmen failed to reach double figures. Ben Cutting suffered with the bat, scoring 20 runs off 22 balls at a strike rate of 90.90, which would be considered poor by his rivals. Renegades’ Josh Lalor, as well as Zak Evans each, grabbed one wicket, as the squad used 8 different bowling combinations. Lalor, Evans, and Will Sutherland all bowled at an economy rate of more than 10 runs per over.
However, the Sydney Thunders opening batsmen Alex Hales and Usman Khawaja’s quickfire and Gurinder Sandhu, Tanveer Sangha’s bowling consistency secured a win by one run against the Melbourne Renegades.
