Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Rizwan made their BBL debuts for Heat and Renegades respectively.
Brisbane Heat won the toss and chose to bowl first. The Renegades’ innings was buoyed by Tim Seifert’s 102 in 56 balls with 9 fours and 6 sixes, while Olivier Peake made 57 with 6 fours and 3 sixes, as the Renegades made 212/5.
Shaheen Afridi, who opened the bowling for Heat with Xavier Bartlett, had a BBL debut to forget. He went for 43 runs in his 2.4 overs, getting hit for four sixes and four fours. He failed to put pressure on the opposition as Shaheen conceded runs at an economy of 15.
Furthermore, his spell was cut short after Shaheen bowled a beamer, aimed straight at Peake. The incident happened on the fourth ball of the 18th over, and Shaheen, trying to bowl a yorker, lost control of the ball, and it went towards Peeke’s head, who barely evaded the ball.
The umpire stepped in as this was the second beamer of the over, though Shaheen apologized for the poor ball, and even Heat captain Nathan McSweeney intervened. After a short discussion, the umpires ruled that Afridi had to be taken off the attack for dangerous bowling. Afridi tried to reason with the official, but the decision stood, and McSweeny himself completed the over.
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This match was also the BBL debut of Afridi’s Pakistan teammate Mohammad Rizwan. Rizwan, batting at no. 3 for the Renegades, struggled to put bat on the ball, and was dismissed for 4 runs in 10 balls by Patrick Dooley.