Whenever a team is struggling and faces the challenge of maintaining itself in the tournament, it is expected that it will give the strongest performance. But in Australia's Big Bash League, a team gave its worst performance in a 'do or die' situation and was eliminated from the tournament after losing. This was the fate of Adelaide Strikers, who collapsed for just 83 runs against Melbourne Stars. Melbourne won this match by 6 wickets and made it to the playoffs.
In the match played on January 13 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), Adelaide needed to win at any cost. But when the match started, the team's condition deteriorated during the power play itself. Adelaide, batting first, lost 4 wickets in the first 6 overs, while the team could score only 21 runs. Then by the 10th over the 5th wicket also fell, while the score was only 40 runs.
Melbourne pacer Tom Curran played the biggest role in making Adelaide's condition so bad in the first 10 overs. By this time, this England bowler had completed his spell of 4 overs and had himself taken 4 out of 5 wickets of Adelaide, while this bowler spent only 10 runs. After this, spinner Mitchell Swepson wreaked havoc and 9 wickets fell for just 55 runs. Cameron Boyce somehow took the team to 83 runs by playing an inning of 20 runs.
With this score itself, Adelaide's journey in the tournament seemed certain to end. However, Melbourne also had to make some efforts to achieve this target. Its batsmen also could not score runs freely, due to which only 43 runs were scored in 8.3 overs and 3 wickets fell. However, captain Marcus Stoinis (23) and Thomas Rodgers (32) avoided any untoward incident by making a partnership of 34 runs. Ultimately, Melbourne won the match by 6 wickets in 15.1 overs.
