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The Melbourne Stars finished sixth on the table in BBL|13, while they did perform decently, they had more issues than they had fixes. They have looked to address as much as they could and this preview covers it all.
A team with Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Beau Webster, Usama Mir and Hilton Cartwright should not be struggling the way it has. And this comes down not just to who the players are, but how they are utilized.
What went right for the Melbourne Stars?
For starters, Glenn Maxwell was the star once more for the Stars, their best batter and their best bowler of the season, Maxwell scored 243 runs in 9 games at 34.7, struck at 174, took 7 wickets at 21.9 as well!
Hilton Cartwright was a standout player of pace and spin, striking at 158 against pace and 140 against spin, perhaps the player they always wanted in Cartwright to lead their middle order!
Their spin bowling unit was good if not great, taking 31 wickets at 23.8 albeit at a slightly high economy of 7.92! Dan Lawrence, Glenn Maxwell, Usama Mir, Liam Dawson and Imad Wasim combined to form an excellent spin attack.
What went wrong for the Melbourne Stars?
In simple words, a lot did go wrong for the Stars in BBL|13.
Diving deeper, an issue against spin bowling surfaces wherein Maxwell and Cartwright failed to paper over the cracks. Beau Webster was the one who endured the most, scoring 70 runs off spin at a strike rate of 84! While his strike rate would shoot up to 132 against pace.
But it wasn’t only Webster, Marcus Stoinis, Dan Lawrence, Sam Harper and Tom Rogers all struggled against the spinners which led to a situation where they ended up scoring at 6.89 against spin through the season, slowing down to a crawl in the middle overs. They also lost wickets at frequent intervals, their batting average against spin being 18.4 in the middle overs.
The lack of solid pacers was obvious the moment Haris Rauf became unavailable, Nathan Coulter-Nile did his bit, but the rest, predominantly red ball bowlers in Scott Boland, Joel Paris, Mark Steketee and Olly Stone failed to leave a mark.
Stoinis and Steketee were also guilty of leaking runs at over ten an over, allowing the opposition to dominate, a weak pace attack combined with their batting issues formed the crux of their issues.
This led to the Melbourne Stars conceding 19.4 more runs on average every game than they made, and their four wins, more than the Thunder and the Renegades highlighting, that when the Stars were good, they were very good and when they were bad, they were shambolic.
How did the Stars go about fixing this?
Their first draft pick was their ultimate goal, Ben Duckett. A keeper who plays spin incredibly well, he reduces their reliance on Sam Harper / Peter Handscomb to keep wickets.
His game against spin stands out as well. Averaging 32.25 against them, striking at 158 and scoring a boundary once every 4.38 balls, Duckett was a smart move, allowing them to also separate the right-hander dominant XI they have.
They also recruited Hamish McKenzie in the off-season, who isn’t a big name yet, but bowls left arm wrist-spin and could form a deadly combination alongside Usama Mir’s ripping legbreaks.
They also managed to sign on Peter Siddle, who recently moved back to Victoria from South Australia. With this BBL being his last hurrah in cricket, can he conjure up the form he displayed from 2019/20 to 2021/22 as a farewell gift to the sport he loves?
Tom Curran was a brilliant signing from the Melbourne Stars, with Curran averaging 20 with the bat and 13.69 with the ball in 2024! His batting strike rate being 157.3 and economy being 7.59!
Players to watch out for!
Sam Harper: Harper comes into this season of the BBL in some fine domestic form, having scored 650 runs at an average of 40.63 across formats including some important fifties for Victoria in the Sheffield Shield.
Campbell Kellaway: Has started the off in middling form, but he did score his maiden FC hundred in his last game of cricket!
Hamish McKenzie: McKenzie has been in top form heading into this season of the BBL cricket, having picked 23 wickets across formats in 10 games, averaging 2.3 wickets per game and he has averaged 12.91 runs conceded per wicket taken!
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