BBL 2025-26: All-round effort sees Sydney Thunder edge past Melbourne Renegades

It was a battle between the bottom two teams as the seventh-placed Melbourne Renegades clashed with eighth-placed Sydney Thunder at the Sydney Showground Stadium on Monday, January 12. The home team won the toss and elected to field first.

The Renegades openers - Josh Brown and Tim Seifert - got their team off to a brisk start as they ended the four-over powerplay at 39/0. Brown, who has been among the top-scorers in the tournament so far, was his usual attacking self. The duo got the team past the 50-run mark before Wes Agar broke the partnership, knocking Brown over for 35(25).

The Kiwi was joined by Jake Fraser-McGurk who looked to attack right from the word go. The Australian right-hander played a cameo of 19(9) as Agar struck once again. The visitors were 83/2 in the 10th over and lost two more wickets soon which impacted their momentum.

With four down at 90, the Men in Red needed a partnership and Hassan Khan and Mohammad Rizwan provided it. But to Renegades' dismay, Rizwan was going at a slower rate. Ultimately, the team management decided to retire out the wicketkeeper-batter for 26(23) with two overs to go in the innings. Notably, it was the third instance of a batter being retired out without any injury in the league's history.

The scoreboard read 154/4 at the end of the 18 overs when Rizwan was called back. However, the last two overs did not produce a windfall as only 16 runs were added to the total. The Renegades ended at 170/8. For the Thunder, Agar was the best bowler with figures of 4-0-23-2.

Sam Konstas gave his team a thunderous start, hitting three fours in the first over delivered by Jason Behrendorff. The 20-year-old's opening partner Matthew Gilkes, on the other hand, failed to get going as the left-hander became Gurinder Sandhu's first victim. Konstas, who was joined by Cameron Bancroft, continued with the same intent but his innings was cut short by Sandhu for 18(11).

Captain Sam Billings joined Bancroft as the pair took the team past the 50-run mark in the seventh over. The Western Australian was not able to get away though and was trapped leg before wicket by Adam Zampa for 17(18).

Soon after, heavy rain interrupted the proceedings and the covers came on. When play finally resumed four overs were lost in the innings and the DLS-based new target for the Thunder was 140. At that stage, it meant the home team needed 60 runs from five overs.

Sandhu struck twice immediately after the resumption of play, sending back Billings (33 off 27) and Daniel Sams (0 off 1). David Willey could not do much as the English left-hander was out for a solitary run. Bowling all-rounder Chris Green joined Maddinson and the duo took it upon themselves to take their team home.

An onslaught from the two helped the team get 45 runs in 18 balls, helping the Thunder win the match by four wickets and four balls remaining. For the Renegades, Sandhu was the standout bowler with figures of 4/42. The right-armer is now the highest wicket-taker of the season with 18 scalps from eight innings at an average of 15.44.

Despite the victory the Thunder still remain at the bottom and the Renegades, too, stay where they were before the match.