Lloyd Pope and D'Arcy Short give Strikers first win of the season
Melbourne Stars weren’t too far behind, but eventually went down by 15 runs to remain winless
AAP20-Dec-2024Legspinner Lloyd Pope earned redemption and late inclusion D’Arcy Short starred as Adelaide Strikers beat early-season strugglers Melbourne Stars by 15 runs at Adelaide Oval.Short wasn’t scheduled to play but was called up on Friday after a calf niggle sidelined Chris Lynn. The only meaningful support for Short came from Alex Ross as Strikers made 165 for 6 in their first home match of the campaign.Opener Sam Harper kept Stars in the game, but Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell produced cameos rather than a major innings.Strikers’ spin trio took four of the first five wickets and six all up, with Pope spearheading their attack. Pope showed great resilience after suffering the indignity of leaking 31 runs in a match-tilting over in Strikers’ first-game loss to Sydney Thunder in Canberra on Tuesday.
“There was some pretty nasty things out there on social media but that’s just the way cricket goes,” Pope told Fox Cricket. “You ride the highs and lows but I’m just trying to keep it even.”He took the key wicket of Harper and was well backed-up by fellow legspinner Cameron Boyce and fingerspinner Matthew Short.”We were always going to back him [Pope] again even after that over last week, he’s a ripper to have around the team,” Matt Short said.Maxwell, who played his first BBL game of the season, threatened to take control of the match after reverse-sweeps for six off his second and third balls off Boyce. But paceman Henry Thornton trapped the big-hitter lbw, backing up his spin trio superbly.The game also produced one of the best catches in BBL history, with Englishman Ben Duckett taking a wonderful leaping right-handed snare at extra cover to dismiss D’Arcy Short. That was the sole highlight of Duckett’s night as the hard-hitting opener was trapped lbw for a golden duck off the third ball of the innings bowled by Matthew Short.All bar two of D’Arcy Short’s first 28 runs came from boundaries, with a six and five fours.Ollie Pope made just 8 off ten balls before being caught behind off a poor attempted ramp.