“Hey guys, I need a new bat.”
Brisbane Heat opener Grace Harris yelled towards her teammates in the North Sydney Oval dugout after noticing the bat’s handle was wobbling. She didn’t want to be given out caught behind by a rogue clicking noise, but couldn’t be bothered to wait for a replacement.
“Nah nah, it’s alright,” Harris muttered before taking her guard.
“Stuff it, I’ll still hit it.”
Sure enough, she slapped the following delivery from Perth Scorchers seamer Piepa Cleary over mid-wicket for six, but the blade wasn’t far behind. The handle had snapped off completely, with the willow sailing towards the other end of the pitch.
Broken bats are not uncommon, but rarely has the accompanying delivery been struck over the boundary rope.
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Harris, laughing in bemusement, facetiously threw away the handle in disgust before retrieving another bat from her teammates. She quickly took a liking to her replacement, thumping the following delivery over long-on for another maximum.
“When they get that looser handle they are at their best, they are pinging,” Harris later explained.
“Thought I’d still hit it for six, they’d been going miles today, so I’m using this bat as long as possible. It went for six, so paid off for me then.”
A couple of young fans asked if they could keep the remnants of her ruined bat, but a team representative explained that Harris had requested to keep it for herself.
The 30-year-old famously names her bats after her favourite burgers. Unfortunately, the one that broke hadn’t given an official title yet.
“Tossing up between McCrispy or McSpicy,” Harris explained.
“McSpicy is my mother‘s favourite burger. McCrispy is because you want to hit the ball crisp.
“I’ll leave it up to the fans, I guess.”
And the replacement bat’s name?
“Zinger Stacker,” Harris nodded.
“She’s gone well for me. Got a clean up recently.”
Harris smacked 66 runs from 22 balls with Zinger Stacker in hand, scoring at a slightly higher strike rate than before the bat swap, where she managed 70 runs from 37 deliveries.
It only seemed appropriate that Harris, having just been handed the Golden Cap for most runs in the tournament, snacked on a sandwich during the innings break.
Highest individual scores in WBBL history
136* – Grace Harris (BH) vs PS, 2023
114* – Smriti Mandhana (ST) vs MR, 2021
114 – Ash Gardner (SS) vs MS, 2017
112* – Alyssa Healy (SS) vs AS, 2018
111 – Alyssa Healy (SS) vs MS, 2020
Harris, later named player of the match, finished with an unbeaten 136 (59), bettering the previous highest Women’s Big Bash League score by 22 runs. Taking advantage of the picturesque venue’s flat wicket and short boundaries, she cleared the rope 11 times, another WBBL record, leaving spectators literally ducking for cover in front of the Duncan Thompson Stand.
One of Harris’ maximums narrowly avoided hitting a Cricket Australia staff member who had specifically been tasked with caring for any fans struck by the match ball. Nobody was safe from Harris’ onslaught.
The Heat finished with 7-229, the second-highest team total in WBBL history, with South African international Mignon du Preez contributing 39 (23).
“I don’t know if I could top that,” Harris said.
“I always find North Sydney Oval to be a great ground for a batter; the wickets are quite nice and true surfaces. The boundary here, I back myself in to clear it if I give it a good swing.”
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Harris was dropped from Australia’s T20 side last month, replaced by young gun Phoebe Litchfield due to the Sydney Thunder young gun’s left-handedness. However, the powerful Queenslander has well and truly pushed her case for a national recall ahead of the upcoming multi-format tour of India.
“The funniest thing, my sister, the first thing she said to me was that I should get dropped more often,” Harris laughed.
“Found my feet and hands recently, and have felt comfortable at the crease again. When you get in the zone, you wish you could do it every innings, but you just have to start again.”
The Heat will next face the Sydney Sixers at the same venue on Tuesday, with the first ball scheduled for 6.10pm AEDT.
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