BBL 2019-20, Match 3: Melbourne Renegades vs Sydney Thunder: Khawaja and Finch’s milestones, Thunder’s first win in 5 years against Renegades and more stats

Sydney Thunder cruised to their 2nd win in as many matches in the BBL 2019-20 with a 6-wicket win against the Melbourne Renegades in Geelong. Renegades settled to 169/5 despite adding 55 runs in 5 overs for the first wicket. They had no chance in the game after the Thunder’s opening pair of Usman Khawaja (66) and Alex Hales (68) shared 99 for the first wicket in 11.5 overs. They reached the target with two balls to spare despite losing four wickets in the second half of the chase.

All the statistical highlights from Sydney Thunder’s first win in five years against Melbourne Renegades:

A rare win for Thunder over Renegades:

6 – This 6-wicket defeat put an end to Melbourne Renegades’ 6-match winning streak in the BBL against the Sydney Thunder. The Renegades’ last defeat in the Big Bash League against Thunder came in the 2013-14 season where the Thunder chased down 105 losing only one wicket. The Renegades won 8 out of 10 BBL meetings against the Thunder.

A big chase by the Thunder:

170 – The chase of 170 by Sydney Thunder in this game is their 3rd highest successful chase in the BBL. They chased down 182 against Perth Scorchers in the last edition and recorded a successful chase of 176 during the 2015-16 season against Melbourne Stars.

Khawaja goes past Watson:

1080 – Usman Khawaja now has scored the most runs in the BBL for the Sydney Thunder. With 1080 runs, Khawaja went past Shane Watson’s tally of 1014 runs. Usman was tied on the top spot with Watson prior to this match.

Milestone match for Finch:

100 – This game between Renegades and Thunder is the 100th Twenty20 match on Australian soil for Aaron Finch. He is the 5th player to feature in as many as 100 T20s in Australia. Finch has aggregated 3223 runs in these 100 matches with help of a hundred and 25 fifties.

Big knocks by Thunder openers:

68 – Alex Hales’ 68 is the 2nd highest individual score for Sydney Thunder in the BBL against the Melbourne Renegades. Usman Khawaja’s 66 in this match stands 3rd in this list. The highest BBL score by a Thunder batsman against Renegades is 75 by Chris Gayle in the 2011-12 season.

A record opening stand for the Thunder:

99 – Usman Khawaja and Alex Hales added 99 for the first wicket which is the 5th highest partnership for any wicket in the BBL for Sydney Thunder. This is also the 3rd highest opening stand for Thunder and the highest since the start of 2015.

99 – The 99-run stand between Khawaja and Hales is the highest for any wicket in the Thunder-Renegades BBL matches. The previous highest is 91 by Cameron White and Dwayne Bravo for 3rd wicket in the 2015-16 season for the Renegades.