“You’ve got this.”
Those were the optimistic words from Brisbane Heat paceman Xavier Bartlett to club veteran Matthew Renshaw after their side conceded 257 runs to the season’s eventual Big Bash champions, the Perth Scorchers.
Sitting in the Gabba changerooms during the innings break, the home team had just seen the second-highest total across the competition’s 15-season history scored against them.
Never before in the tournament’s existence had a team produced more sixes in an innings (18) or put together a higher total in Brisbane than what the Scorchers had just smashed against the two-time BBL champions.
Despite the daunting task at hand, Renshaw recalls the moment that made him believe the Heat were ready to embark on a history-making run chase.
“When you get hit for 200-plus, always you’re like, ‘this is gonna be a tough one’.” Renshaw said.
“‘X’ (Bartlett) came over to me and he was just like, ‘You’ve got this’. At that point, I was like, ‘Oh s**t, maybe we do’.”
For the second time in as many games to start the BBL|15 season, Brisbane were set a target above 200.
Heat coach Johan Botha knew all too well about the challenge his side faced. Just three days earlier, his side fell 14 runs short of the Renegades’s score of 212 runs in Geelong.
But with memories of a famous Proteas run-chase, when they chased down Australia’s 4-334 to claim an ODI win in Johannesburg in 2006, Botha reflected on the cool and calm atmosphere amongst the Heat’s players prior to pandemonium about to be seen on Vulture Street.
“I always say in those types of games, same as that game at the Wanderers all those years ago, it’s the team batting first that actually do all the hard work and set it up to realise this is a really good wicket,” Botha said.
“Finn Allen (79 off 38 balls) and Cooper Connolly (77 off 37 balls) were excellent. All of them came in and hit the ball hard from the first ball.
“We actually didn’t say too much. The boys were pretty quiet and calm there. There was no bowlers upset and throwing things around or anything like that. Everyone just like, ‘wow, they batted really well and we’ve got to have a go at it’.”
Heat allrounder Jack Wildermuth and Colin Munro walked to the middle looking to build a platform. One ball later, the challenge was complicated as Australian and Scorchers speedster Jhye Richardson knocked over the New Zealand international.
That brought Renshaw in and, as the left-hander admits, his confidence was tested.
“I’m in the dugout and I’ve just grabbed my helmet, but I hadn’t even put my stuff down and I was straight out there,” he said.
“I was walking out and I’d sort of only just seen what happened and it looked like it popped a little bit. I was thinking, ‘This is an absolute snake pit’. All the dew has just come in and I’m like, ‘Okay, well, this is going to be interesting. Jhye’s a pretty good bowler. This could be anything’.
“I’ve had a few of those games in the past where they make 200 and you get 90, and you think this just might be one of those games.”
Renshaw survived his first ball from Richardson that turned out to be a no-ball and free hit for the Heat No.3. He credits this early reprieve as an important factor that led to an unforgettable knock.
“I knew it was a free hit and I was swinging as hard as I could,” Renshaw said.
“Fortunately, it was right in the arc… I also then hit a back foot punch for two, and I think at that point, I was seeing them well.”
Renshaw also had a slice of luck. In Richardson’s next over, he spooned a slower ball to Scorchers skipper Ashton Turner at mid-on. But Richardson had overstepped again in what proved to be a sliding doors moment.
“He bowled this slower ball and realised that I’d stuffed it,” Renshaw said.
“There’s that many times where you’re walking off and the umpires are like, ‘slow down, slow down’. Well, I was just waiting, but then it got a bit longer and the longer it went, the more I thought I might actually be back in.
“When I got called back in, it was like, ‘Okay, this might be my night’.”
With Wildermuth, the pair would register the highest partnership in league history. Their 212-run stand off just 93 balls featured 23 boundaries as they took apart Perth’s attack.
Remarkably, they equalled the Scorchers’ sixes tally of 18 between them, hitting nine sixes each with some scintillating strokeplay that was the backbone of the team’s total.
Against Perth’s esteemed bowling stocks, including Joel Paris, Ashton Agar, Aaron Hardie and Richardson, Botha felt the left-hand, right-hand combination was pivotal.
“When you chase those types of targets, it’s probably one-in-a-hundred that you make it and that was the one,” Botha said.
“Renshaw and Wildermuth played so well together. I think for us what worked was the left-right (hand) combination. We matched them for sixes hit.
“Obviously on the night you get momentum and the crowd gets into it. Bowlers start panicking and it just seems like the game gets away from you a little bit. That’s exactly what happened and we sort of jumped into that momentum.
“That doesn’t happen very often and fortunately for us that night, it did happen.”
In the midst of the formidable showcase of power-hitting, Renshaw brought up his maiden hundred in the Big Bash.
The 90-game campaigner’s previous highest score was 90no, a total he’d reached twice, in BBL|08 and BBL|12. Renshaw knew the opportunity was one he may never have again.
“I’d made two 90s before that and I thought they were my chances to get a hundred,” Renshaw said.
“I thought I’m never going to get a hundred again. They were both in chases and I feel like I do my best work in chases.
“I hit Couch for two sixes in a row and then I looked at the score, and I was on 93 and there was eight overs left. Then I was like, ‘I could get 100 here’.
“It’s such a weird feeling in a short-form game, because normally on 99 in Sheffield Shield cricket, (the field) comes up. Whereas they slid five out. No one at mid-wicket, and I just needed to touch the ball.”
The jubilation didn’t last long, however. ‘Renners’ was run out in the 16th over, caught short of his crease coming back for a second when on 102.
His wicket left the hosts needing 46 from 26 balls with eight wickets in hand.
Given Brisbane were scoring at more than 13 per over prior to Renshaw’s dismissal, victory was now well in sight for the team in teal.
Renshaw had full faith in Wildermuth and new batter Max Bryant to bring home an incredible win for the Heat faithful, although the former South African captain was considering an unlikely result as the match grew closer to its conclusion.
“There was 20 runs to win and ‘Boats’ (Botha) goes, ‘are you ready for a Super Over?'” Renshaw said.
“I just looked down. I was pretty sore. I actually said to him, ‘Why do you reckon I’m still in my kit?’ because if I sat down and got a shower and changed, I would be done. I was so tired.
“For Jack (Wildermuth) to keep going and then Max (Bryant) to come in and do what he did was icing on the cake. I really enjoyed being in the dugout, because it was like riding it with the boys. There was no pressure on me, because I had … what I needed and then it was time for them to take over.”
With two balls remaining, Wildermuth shovelled a full ball outside off stump past backward point and registered the winning runs to the absolute delight of 25,000 screaming Heat fans, finishing on 110no off 54.
As the celebrations began for Brisbane fans, the disappointment set in for Scorchers coach Adam Voges. Only 90 minutes earlier, his side had produce their highest BBL score, only to be overshadowed.
While the defeat was painful, Voges says it was a landmark moment for his team as they charged towards a league-record sixth BBL title.
“It’s a long flight home from Brisbane at the best of times, but it felt a bit longer after that game,” he said.
“When we weren’t able to defend 257 was a pretty pivotal moment in the campaign. It could have broken us, in a way, with a young attack. We had a terrific batting lineup that had scored runs, but the inability to be able to defend such a big total could have been a real detriment.
“But I actually found it went the other way, and I think going through that experience … was actually really pivotal to how we went about the rest of the tournament.
“Our bowling attack was able to grow and learn from that experience to then be able to put those lessons into place when we were under the pump in other games.
“I look back on that moment and as frustrating as it was at the time, it actually proved to be the turning point that I think helped accelerate our growth as a bowling unit.”
On the contrary, the Heat missed the finals in BBL|15 despite claiming four consecutive home wins to start their season.
Poor away form (1-4) left them outside the top four and defeat at the Gabba to the Sydney Sixers in the last match of the regular season sealed their fate.
Notwithstanding the struggles Brisbane faced, this extraordinary night had a long-lasting impact.
Wildermuth proved his worth as a genuinely imposing T20 opener, and Renshaw’s runs were a catalyst that propelled him back into the national side, where he was Australia’s top run scorer at this year’s men’s T20 World Cup.
“We’d probably written ourselves off and somehow we just kept one foot in the door,” Renshaw said.
“After that win, I was on such a high and then you get in the rooms. You sit down and you’re like, ‘did we really just do that?’.
Chase 258 in 20 overs? Do that, they did.
