Obakeng Meletse
Lizelle Lee demonstrated that she still has what it takes as she scored a career-best Big Bash League Women (BBLW) total with an unbeaten century, guiding the Hobart Hurricanes to a crushing 72-run victory over the Perth Scorchers at the Sydney Cricket Ground yesterday.
Lee now holds the record for the highest individual BBLW score, following her unbeaten knock of 150, surpassing Grace Harris's score of 136 runs, scored for Brisbane Heat against the Scorchers last season.
The hard-hitting former South African international was at her destructive best in an innings that dished out punishment to all the Western Australian side's bowlers, bashing them to all parts of the iconic Sydney venue.
Her score, off just 75 balls, marked her fourth BBLW century, alongside the 11 half-centuries she has scored in the 88 matches she has played Down Under. Her exceptional performance included a dozen sixes and an equal number of fours as she helped her side set a daunting score of 203/3 in their allotted 20 overs.
The Canes had lost the early wickets of English opener Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Nicola Carey with only 16 runs on the board, with 19-year-old right-arm medium bowler Chloe Ainsworth doing the early damage, narrowly missing out on a hat trick following her double strike.
Lee is a well-travelled cricketer, having represented the Manchester Originals and Trent Rockets in the United Kingdom’s Hundred competition. The former Proteas wicketkeeper-batsman retired from international cricket in 2022 and has since been globe-trotting, applying her skills in various T20 and limited-overs leagues worldwide.
At 32-years-old, she fell just short of her career high score of 169, which she scored in just 84 balls in a provincial T20 match against Mpumalanga in 2013 while playing for North West.
Lee has represented three BBL franchises, racking up an impressive 2,287 runs to date since making her debut for the Melbourne Stars in the 2017/18 season. Chloe Tryon, a former teammate of Lee with the Proteas and current teammate in Hobart, was the other South African involved in the match, contributing little as she only bowled a single over that went for 12 runs.
The win snaps a two-match losing streak for the Tasmanian side, promoting them to second on the log. With Lee's remarkable performance, she also moved to second on the run-scoring charts, having accumulated 221 runs, behind Australia’s Ellyse Perry, who currently occupies the top spot with 315 runs.