Former Ireland all-rounder Kim Garth managed to churn out a magical spell by delivering three-back-to-back maiden overs as her team Melbourne Stars defeated Sydney Thunders by 12 runs. Kim scalped the wickets of Tahlia Wilson, Phoebe Litchfield, and Corinne Hall, and helped Melbourne Stars to defend a meager total of 108/7.
Melbourne Stars captain Meg Lanning won the toss and elected to bat first on Tuesday, October 26 in Launceston, but the team faced early blows as they lost the wickets of Annabel Sutherland and Lanning in the initial overs. Elyse Villani (52) and Maia Bouchier (31) made a brilliant partnership of 63 runs for the third wicket before the latter fell to Lauren Smith.
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Notably, none of the other cricketers managed to surpass the double-digit mark. For Sydney Thunders, Issy Wong scalped two wickets, while Samantha Bates, Deepti Sharma, Hannah Darlington, and Lauren Smith clinched one wicket each.
In pursuit of 109 runs, Sydney Thunders had a poor start as they lost early wickets of Tahlia Wilson (0), Phoebe Litchfield (0), Smriti Mandhana (3), and Corinne Hall (3) when the scorecard read 12/4. Wilson, Litchfield, and Hall were dismissed by Garth while Mandhana was caught by Garth off the bowling of Annabel Sutherland. Deepti Sharma scored an unbeaten 44 off 48 balls, but her side was restricted to 96/5 at the end of the match.
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The only other instance when a bowler bowled three maidens and picked three wickets was when Anam Amin from Pakistan bowled three maidens against Bangladesh women in a T20I match, as her spell read 3-3-0-3. In men’s cricket, only Mohammad Irfan has bowled three maidens in a T20 game in Caribbean Premier League 2018. His spell read 4-3-1-2. Here is the video of her dismissals:
Three maidens, and three wickets, to start the innings!
Kim Garth was unstoppable! 🔥🍀 @CommBank | #WBBL07 pic.twitter.com/GNzHuXjaeu
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) October 26, 2021
