Who won the hub? Life inside strangest WBBL season

After almost six weeks in a Sydney Olympic Park hub, the Melbourne Stars and Sydney Thunder have emerged as the last teams standing.

The strangest of Rebel WBBL seasons will culminate tonight when Meg Lanning’s Stars and Rachael Haynes’ Thunder face off at North Sydney Oval.

Where the ‘WBBL Village’ was bubbling with nearly 300 athletes, families and staff last weekend, a quiet had settled over the hub by Friday.

One half of the twin hotels had emptied, bar the floor housing the match officials, following the Brisbane Heat’s departure after Thursday night’s semi-final defeat – their puzzles, games and guitars gone with them.

Just a handful of floors remain occupied on the other side (easier access to the lifts, which have a four-person limit, is a small bonus for those who remain).

‘Win the hub’ has been a line uttered by more than one team throughout the tournament, after it was acknowledged early on that the teams which best embraced the ups and downs of bubble life would be the ones to produce the goods on the field.

For the majority of the Melbourne Stars players, this place has been home for eight weeks, counting their two weeks in hotel quarantine before the Village had officially opened.

It has been a long and somewhat surreal journey to this point, but Stars opener Elyse Villani believes the way her team embraced the unique situation helped them succeed.

"It’s gotten harder the longer it has been going on, but in saying that, when we first got in it felt like bloody freedom coming from Melbourne," Villani told cricket.com.au.

"We’ve got a great group, it’d be hard if we didn’t click or if we didn’t get along as well, that’d be tough, but we’ve been lucky in that respect."

For the Thunder, the hub has presented the odd experience of being housed extremely close to home – some players live less than 20 minutes from the Village – while not being permitted to return there.

Skipper Haynes admitted on Friday she was not only desperate for her own space and bed, but also to make a trip to her original hometown of Melbourne, to visit family she has not seen since March.

However, having one of the youngest squads in the competition may also have helped the Thunder thrive on the inside.

"It’s a tough environment to be in, it’s hard to get way from the game because you don’t have those moments where you can switch off as much as you do when you can go back home and spend time with family and friends," Haynes said.

"But to be honest I think our younger players absolutely loved it. 

"They really enjoyed being around each other and made the most of the situation." 

While some teams handled the environment better than others, all have acknowledged the challenges of being confined to a hub with every single one of your rivals for the entirety of a tournament. 

And of the difficulty in finding an escape from cricket, when the usual escapes of home, hobbies and friends were unavailable. 

All have also acknowledged the lengths Cricket Australia has gone to, in order to make the environment as comfortable and fun as possible – and so too the need for the bio-secure measures to allow the competition to go ahead.

Amid the highs and lows, here are just some of the weird and wonderful thing that made up the WBBL Village:

The Students

There were more than a dozen high school students in the WBBL Village, and seven of those completed their final Year 12 exams while in the hub.

Image Id: 668D3E9EE89347B0AAA8BCDF220E6E8D Image Caption: The class of WBBL|06!

In the case of Strikers quick Darcie Brown, she also took out the Rebel Young Gun award.

Study groups were formed, the Heat threw a fake formal for Charli Knott, and when all the exams were said and done, a beach-themed graduation ceremony was held (because why just graduate, when you can graduate in a lei and a plastic mortarboard?).

The Class of WBBL|06: Tess Flintoff (Stars), Charli Knott (Heat), Darcie Brown (Strikers), Stella Campbell (Sixers), Alisha Bates (Sixers), Chloe Abel (Hurricanes) and Kate Peterson (Thunder)

The Musicians

When it came to off-field harmony, the Brisbane Heat squad was in perfect tune.

The two-time reigning champions found their own unique way of relaxing and filling their down time together in the WBBL Village, thanks to the musical talents of captain Jess Jonassen and allrounders Amelia Kerr and Mikayla Hinkley.

The guitar-playing trio, and assistant coach Scott Prestwidge, found an outlet through jamming together, while their teammates often joined for a singalong – with requests welcome, of course.

The Bub

When it came to the most popular member of the Rebel WBBL Village, there was no competition.

Wherever she crawled, 11-month-old Grace – the daughter of Melbourne Renegades' Lea Tahuhu and Amy Satterthwaite – won hearts and made new mates.

With more than 140 adoring new aunties (and that's just the players) in the Sydney Olympic Park hub, Grace was never short of attention.

The Grub

Dining in the WBBL Village was something of a surreal experience at first. 

Not only were you eating with a couple of hundred other people in a school camp-type atmosphere, there was also the COVID-safe buffet, where hotel staff members in a mask and gloves would dish up meals.

Some enormous quantities of food were consumed, Taco Tuesday was warmly embraced, and the free coffee, smoothies and snack bar went a long way to making life that bit better.

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC week is usually held in July but was this year delayed until November 8-15 due to COVID19, providing the WBBL a unique opportunity to celebrate through the First Nations Festival of Cricket.

A smoking ceremony was held in the Village, while Barefoot Circles, Indigenous kits and special balls were part of the First Nations Festival of Cricket.

Image Id: 1F5085589F3F49D0897AC44302F6722A Image Caption: Proud Muruwari woman Ashleigh Gardner // Getty

Every team also underwent an education session with Cricket Australia Indigenous Engagement Specialist Courtney Hagen through the season.

"(The session) was quite raw," Sydney Sixers allrounder and proud Muruwari woman Ashleigh Gardner said at the time. "Listening to all those details, things I knew about the past and about what's happening currently in Indigenous culture, it was pretty eye-opening for people who weren't aware.

"It's good to keep that conversation going and that's the good thing, that is has created a conversation."

The Mayor

One of the stranger events in the Village was the election of a Village Mayor, which saw each club nominate their preferred candidate, with the nominees then put to a public vote.

The concept was embraced by the teams and none more so than the Stars, who put together an elaborate social media campaign for their somewhat reluctant nominee, and eventual winner, Bhavi Devchand.

The actual duties of the WBBL Village Mayor remained somewhat murky and decidedly tongue-in-cheek; there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the repaired golf simulator, and Devchand handed out pretend graduation certificates to the Year 12 students.

It also came with the unexpected benefit of providing fans an opportunity to get to know Devchand and her fascinating story.

The Games

Several fierce competition’s pitted team’s non-cricket skills against one another and it was the Scorchers who reigned supreme.

First, the combination of Beth Mooney and Nicole Bolton upset a highly enthusiastic Renegades outfit in the ping pong tournament, before Sophie Devine took out the longest drive competition on the golf simulator. 

Devine’s Challenge

Scorchers captain Sophie Devine is not only one of the greatest players of the WBBL, she is also one of the more thoughtful ones.

Devine brought back her annual challenge for a third season and this time, the challenges revolved around activities around the hub.

The allrounder would nominate an opposition player from Perth’s upcoming matches, and issue a challenge – and if the player completed it, Devine would donate $100 to the charity of their choice.

The Stars were up first and Elyse Villani ensured it was a slam dunk for Movember.