“Monstrous six”: Nic Maddinson thwacks Chris Green for 101-metre six in Renegades vs Thunder BBL 12 match at Docklands Stadium

Captain Nic Maddinson provided his team with an apposite start as a solid foundation laid by him inspired Melbourne Renegades to beat Sydney Thunder by 4 wickets in the seventh match of the ongoing 12th season of the Big Bash League.

Although Thunder pacer Gurinder Sandhu made early inroads by dismissing Renegades wicket-keeper batter Sam Harper (0) in the first over itself, Maddinson was the pinnacle of their batting in the first half before his predecessor Aaron Finch took centrestage at the Docklands Stadium tonight.

In what was his 74th T20 and 23rd BBL half-century, Finch scored a match-winning 70* (43) comprising of seven fours and two sixes. Needing 10 runs in four balls for a win, Finch hit Sandhu for a six before running a couple of runs twice to seal a 175-run chase with a ball to spare.

Nic Maddinson thwacks Chris Green for 101-metre six in Renegades vs Thunder BBL 12 match at Docklands Stadium

Maddinson, who hit three out of the 14 sixes hit in BBL 12 Match 8, hit the longest of them all in the eighth over. Having barely survived on the previous delivery, Maddinson hit Thunder spinner Chris Green for a 101-metre six. An archetype slog by the left-handed batter saw him sitting down on one knee before thwacking the off-spinner through the mid-wicket region for a monstrous shot.

The 30-year old player was his team’s second-best batter on a Sunday night on the back of scoring 39 (28) at a strike rate of 139.28. Having faced a lone delivery in the first two overs, Maddinson hit Sandhu for a towering six on the first delivery of the third over as both him and Jake Fraser-McGurk (24) collected a total of 22 runs from Sandhu’s second over.

Having kick-started their BBL 2022-23 campaign with a couple of victories, Melbourne see themselves at the second position on the points table in a rare event. For those who have followed Renegades in the last three seasons, they realize the importance of a praiseworthy start for them.