Stars captain Marcus Stoinis didn’t need to think twice about choosing to bowl first at a venue where 13 of 15 games since the start of 2022/23 were won by the chasing team, and he almost immediately threw the returning Tom Curran back into the action.
Curran offered a bit too much width in his opening over, allowing big-hitting Renegades opener Josh Brown to drive freely with open shoulders, but he picked up a fortuitous early wicket when Tim Seifert toe-ended an aggressive straight drive - not for the first time in BBL15 - and was caught at mid-on by Haris Rauf at the edge of the circle. Seifert’s BBL average at Marvel Stadium dropped from an already unenviable 13.20 to 11.50 from six innings.
Brown played a typical scattergun Josh Brown innings - a smorgasbord of clean boundary hitting and ugly edges - but the frequency of false shots decreased as the innings went on and he found himself driving the majority of a 59-run partnership with Jake Fraser-McGurk, outscoring his batting partner by a ratio of two to one in that time.
He was lucky not to have been dismissed on 31 when charging a floaty delivery from Swepson. His aggressive off-drive went over the top of Kellaway at long-off, who was a good ten metres in front of the rope and unable to reach it with a desperate leap and stretch.
At the other end, Jake Fraser-McGurk struggled to get going. He needed 11 deliveries to record his first boundary - a six to move from nine to 15 - before hitting the roof with a miscued leg glance and then departing for a frustrating 17 from 14 deliveries.
Neither Brown nor Mohammad Rizwan could read the slower balls of Curran, who was bowled out early as a result, but they both survived two overs from the English import to build a promising partnership in the middle of the innings.
Brown was left to play non-striker for two overs on 49, having moved one off 50 in the fifth ball of the eighth over before converting in the 11th with a simple single.
Immediately after being struck in the box and needing a few minutes to recover, Rizwan (12 off 13 at the time) flicked a very full delivery to deep midwicket. Maxwell ran to his left and got into a comfortable catching position but let it slip through. Rizwan then picked up his second boundary to move to 18 (15) with a similar shot off Curran, finding a gap in the deep, but couldn’t go on with it when recording just 21 from 20 deliveries.
Rizwan has failed to live up to the hype of his pre-season signing, averaging just 22.33 at a strike rate of 99 - the slowest of any player in the competition this season with at least 50 runs. Rizwan’s dismissal was the first of two in the 13th over for Stars captain Stoinis, who mixed up his speeds to take three or more wickets for just the seventh time in his BBL career (66 bowling innings).
The Renegades again opted for the Surge in the 15th over with Brown still at the crease and he pounced on the opportunity, scoring 18 of 20 runs off the bowling of Peter Siddle, who up until that point had impressed.
That began to make up for a sluggish middle overs period, boosting their score to 136 after 16 overs, but they would score just 30 from the next four overs to limp to an under-par 166. It was a disappointing total for a team that was sitting pretty at 1-74 after eight overs under a closed roof.
Will Sutherland, hero of the MCG Melbourne derby last Sunday night, couldn’t replicate his cameo - out for 2 swiping Rauf to long-on; and Hassan Khan, striking at only 7.5rpo this season, was unable to accelerate the run rate whilst those around him fell and he too made way in the 20th when becoming Stoinis’ third wicket.
The seven double-digit overs that the Renegades notched up in their innings were almost matched inside seven overs by the Stars' opening pair of Sam Harper and Thomas Rogers, who clubbed anything of a full length to record the join
t-second fastest half-century in Melbourne Stars history.
It was just his second 50 in 39 innings of a BBL career that has failed to flourish for five years and could kickstart what the Stars hope will be a late season resurgence following their three losses on the trot.
BBL veteran Jason Behrendorff and the returning Brendan Doggett, on Renegades debut after serving time in Australia’s Ashes squad, served up a buffet of half-volleys that were able to be step-hit in front of square, or back of a length deliveries that were helped square with the pace of the ball.
Both batters brought the Stars fans in the crowd to life with huge sixes that went into the top level of the Marvel Stadium seating bowl - Harper registering a 110 metre six off Behrendorff and Rogers striking Gurinder Sandhu for 99 metres.
The run rate of the opening partnership finished at 11.2rpo and ended against the run of play when Rogers was run out at the non-strikers’ end coming back for two.
Left-arm Victorian leg spinner Callum Stow gave Stars number three Campbell Kellaway a very easy introduction to the crease with a couple of long hops either side of the stumps that were pulled into a gap at deep square leg for four and slashed between short third man and backward point for three.
Kellaway was gone immediately thereafter by falling into a trap set by Renegades spinner Hassan Khan, slog-sweeping him straight to a sweeper at deep backward square leg.
127-game BBL veteran Glenn Maxwell was promoted up to number four to keep the team well ahead of the required run rate and received sarcastic cheers from the 42,000-strong crowd when eclipsing his three consecutive scores of 1 and spent the early minutes of his innings watching on as Brendan Doggett bowled a terrible third over that included two legside wides and a bouncer that was hooked over a vacant fine leg for six.
Sam Harper rocketed along to a 35-ball half-century - shaded significantly by the speed of Rogers’ fifty but still at a run rate well in front of the 8.31rpo that was required when he first came out to bat.
Harper demonstrated his ease with the pitch and the bowling in front of him by scurrying across his crease and scooping Gurinder Sandhu to a vacant fine leg in the second ball of the Power Surge, which was taken with the Stars needing just 41 runs from 48 deliveries. Sandhu added to the flurry of terrible deliveries from the Renegades’ attack in that over with a short ball well outside off with his two allowed outfielders both on the legside.
Sandhu’s final delivery of a 15-run Power Surge over was bowled to his field but it still wasn’t good enough for the set Harper, who saw the bouncer coming and hooked over the top of one of the two legside sweepers placed for such a shot. That big over brought the requirement down to just 25 from 42 and saw red shirts beginning to file out of the seating bowl in a hurry.
Those who stuck around for the remainder of the chase were treated to more clean and stylish strokeplay from the 29-year-old, who always appeared one step ahead of the bowlers and has overtaken Sydney Thunder captain David Warner to become the leading runscorer of BBL15.
On a pitch where spin appeared to be the better of the two options, Renegades captain Will Sutherland curiously gave only six overs to Callum Stow (0-30) and Hassan Khan (1-20) who, despite their underwhelming figures, had briefly put the brakes on prior to the untimely reintroduction of Doggett in the tenth.
Melbourne Stars host sixth-placed Adelaide Strikers at the MCG on Tuesday, whilst the Renegades will play Warner's Thunder in Sydney on Monday night.