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BBL record-breaker Stoinis inspires Stars

3 minute read

Allrounder Marcus Stoinis has smashed the highest BBL score in history as the Melbourne Stars thrashed the Sydney Sixers at the MCG.

MARCUS STOINIS
MARCUS STOINIS Picture: Mark Nolan/Getty Images

Records have tumbled at the MCG, with Marcus Stoinis blasting the highest score in BBL history in the Melbourne Stars' thumping 44-run victory over the Sydney Sixers.

The allrounder's unbeaten 147 from 79 balls on Sunday night smashed the previous best of 122 not out by Hobart's D'Arcy Short in January 2018.

Stoinis' maiden Twenty20 hundred took the Stars to a mammoth 1-219 after being sent in to bat by the Sixers.

Already the BBL's leading-run scorer this season, Stoinis bounced back from a duck in Friday's Melbourne derby victory in powerful fashion.

"This is as much fun as I've had on a cricket field," Stoinis said.

"I probably haven't played as 360 as that for a long time, if ever."

Stoinis' 207-run opening stand with Hilton Cartwright (59) broke the record for the highest BBL partnership, rocketing past former Stars Rob Quiney and Luke Wright's 172 in 2012.

His innings - the third best by an Australian in Twenty20s, behind Aaron Finch twice - included 13 fours and eight sixes as the hapless Sixers' bowlers had no answers to some supreme clean-hitting.

Ben Dwarshuis' 0-61 was the most runs conceded by a bowler in the BBL.

Sixers teammate Tom Curran racked up figures of 0-58 for the second time this season.

Stoinis' amazing form is going to be hard for Australian selectors to ignore in the lead-up to this year's Twenty20 World Cup.

The 30-year-old has 478 runs for the tournament, 159 ahead of the next best, the 0-9 Renegades' Shaun Marsh.

The Stars' total was the third-biggest in the BBL's nine seasons, falling just short of eclipsing Hobart and the Renegades' scores in the same 2017 game.

An eighth win of the campaign builds the Stars a two-game advantage on top of the ladder, ahead of the Sixers (6-3).

Moises Henriques (41) and Dwarshuis (42 not out) were the only Sydney players to show any resistance with the bat.

"That (Stoinis' innings) was something else to watch but I think moving forward as a bowling group we need to get a bit further ahead of the game earlier," Henriques said.

The Stars are next in action on Wednesday night when they battle the Scorchers in Perth.

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