All out for 15! Sydney Thunder record lowest-ever T20 total

Sydney Thunder - a team that consists of England’s World Cup-winner Alex Hales and South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw, collapsed to a record low score of 15 all out.

0, 0, 3, 0, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 4, 1. This was the sequence of scores in a T20 game in Australia on Friday as Sydney Thunder sunk to a record low of 15 all out against Adelaide Strikers. Sydney’s total in the Big Bash League (BBL) game is the lowest ever in a men’s T20, resulting in a 124-run defeat after Adelaide posted 139/9 in their 20 overs. The previous lowest was a total of 21 by Turkey in a T20I against Czech Republic.

This rude jolt is likely to dent the confidence of many of the Thunder's batters in the remainder of their campaign. (Getty Images)

Sydney Thunder, led by former Australia U-19 captain Jason Sangha, folded up in just 5.5 overs, giving them another dubious record of the shortest completed innings in a T20. Their misery at the Sydney Showground Stadium is further underlined by extras making the second biggest contribution to the total, with one leg-bye and two wides adding three runs to the paltry score. Pacer Henry Thornton claimed career-best figures of 5/3 while seamer Wes Agar took 4/6. Adelaide Strikers had star leg-spinner Rashid Khan and former Australia pacer Peter Siddle in their ranks, but they weren’t even needed.

Sydney’s collapse is bewildering given the presence of quite a few players of repute in their ranks such as England’s World Cup-winner Alex Hales and South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw. Just a month ago, Indian bowlers found it impossible to dislodge Hales in the T20 World Cup semi-final in Adelaide, the England opener smashing an unbeaten 86 off 47 deliveries in a 10-wicket victory. On Friday though, Hales did not trouble the scorers, edging Agar behind the wicket for a two-ball duck in the third over of the innings.

By then, Thunder were in deep trouble at 7/4. The left-handed Rossouw had already fallen for 3, courtesy a stunning, one-handed catch by Matthew Short at first slip off Thornton’s bowling. Rossouw, too, has been in red-hot form in recent months; he hit a century against Bangladesh in the T20 World Cup, having become a mainstay of South Africa's T20 line-up. But he was one of a number of Sydney batters who simply did not have the answers on the day.

"It’s quite amazing that I’m actually off the pitch speaking to you. Because that was quick,” Adelaide Strikers captain Siddle told Channel Seven. “I did not picture what just happened. Rashid’s played a lot of T20 cricket and that’s the first time he’s not bowled a ball in a T20 match. For the two of us not to bowl a ball, it’s still quite amazing.”

Thunder had, in fact, begun their BBL campaign with a one-wicket win over Melbourne Stars, but this rude jolt is likely to dent the confidence of many of their batters in the remainder of their campaign.