Lucy Hamilton creates WBBL history with a match-winning fifer

Teenager Lucy Hamilton created history in the Women’s Big Bash League after the left-arm fast bowler claimed a five-wicket haul.

It was the WBBL 2024/25 match between Melbourne Stars Women and Brisbane Heat Women in Sydney. After Brisbane Heat Women chose to bowl first, they restricted Stars to 138 all out in 20 overs. In reply, Heat chased the target in 17.3 overs after losing four wickets.

After Stars openers Annabel Sutherland and Yastika Bhatia had a 31-run partnership for the opening wicket, Lucy Hamilton brought breakthroughs for Heat by taking up two wickets on her first over. Hamilton bowled Bhatia for eight runs on her second ball of the day, and then on her fifth ball, she dismissed the skipper and opener Sutherland for 21 runs.    

The left-arm fast bowler returned to her second spell in the ninth over and started with a wicket as Meg Lanning was out for 13 runs. Hamilton continued her spell and dismissed Tess Flintoff (7) on her final ball of her third over. 

The uncapped player Hamilton bowled her last over in the 14th over, where she trapped Deepti Sharma for an lbw on her fifth ball of the over.

Lucy Hamilton ended her bowling with the figures of 4-1-8-5. She delivered 20 balls and conceded only one boundary. While these were the joint second-best bowling figures in WBBL history, Hamilton also became the youngest bowler in WBBL history to record a five-wicket haul. 

Hamilton recorded her first five-wicket haul in her WBBL career at the age of 18 years and 193 days. Meanwhile, the Caribbean star Hayley Matthews was the previous record holder as she recorded her first WBBL fifer at the age of 18 years and 296 days (for Hobart Hurricanes against Brisbane Heat at Hobart in 2017).

Although Brisbane Heat openers were dismissed cheaply, Jemimah Rodrigues (45) and Charli Knott (35*) had important roles in a comfortable chasing and winning by six wickets.