Former Australia captain, Meg Lanning, scored a blistering century in the WBBL today (November 20), hitting the third-highest score in the competition's history weeks after she wasn't retained ahead of the WPL mega-auction.
Lanning opened the batting for Melbourne Stars alongside Rhys McKenna, and the pair was circumspect at the start of the innings. Maitlan Brown kept them to just a single and five dots in her opening over, before one four came off Lanning's bat in Lauren Cheatle’s first over.
From there, however, Lanning took control. She struck four more boundaries in the powerplay and by the end of the sixth over, the Stars were 47-0. Lanning rocketed towards a half-century, and hit her first six off the innings off Ash Gardner before passing 50 in the 11th over of the game off 41 balls. A six from McKenna off Brown's final ball of that over took the partnership into three figures.
Lanning's second 50 came in less than half the time of her first, taking just 20 balls. She struck Caoimhe Bray for three boundaries in the 15th over which cost 18 runs, before taking a single off the first ball of Mady Villiers' next over to reach a second WBBL century. Her first came in 2019 when she scored 101 against Hobart Hurricanes at Lilac Hill, but she surpassed that to reach the third-highest score in WBBL history today.
She was finally out in the 20th over of the innings, having scored 135 off 74 balls, hitting 22 fours (a new record in any franchise league) and four sixes. Melbourne Stars finished on 219-4, the third-highest total in WBBL history, after Dani Gibson hit the final ball of the innings for six.
Lanning fires back after WPL release
Lanning's innings comes just two weeks after she was released from Delhi Capital's squad ahead of the WPL auction. Lanning was Delhi's captain and second-highest run-scorer in last year's edition, in which they finished runners-up: she scored 276 runs at an average of 34.5. However, her strike-rate of 119 might have led to her release ahead of the mega-auction.
Delhi chose to retain other overseas players in Annabel Sutherland and Marizanne Kapp, but Alice Capsey, Jess Jonassen and Sarah Bryce were released alongside Lanning. The WPL auction will take place on November 27.
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