Strikers captain Tahlia McGrath is out to make an impact as Adelaide face a crucial showdown with Sydney Thunder at Adelaide Oval
No shying away from 'below-par form': McGrath
Tahlia McGrath says there is "no shying away" from what she has labelled her own "below-par form" in Weber WBBL|11, but the Australia vice-captain remains confident she can help get the Adelaide Strikers' season back on track.
The Strikers will host Sydney Thunder at Adelaide Oval on Friday night in a game that will likely be make-or-break for both teams' top-four hopes, with the hosts to again be without veteran pace bowler Megan Schutt due to a hamstring issue.
The Thunder have also made a tactical tweak to their squad, recalling Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu in place of England allrounder Em Arlott.
Strikers skipper McGrath has been below her best in her club's first six games of WBBL|11, scoring 47 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 92.
With the ball she has also struggled to make an impact, taking two wickets and going at an economy rate of 8.15.
Adelaide Strikers squad v Thunder: Tahlia McGrath (c), Jemma Barsby, Tammy Beaumont, Maggie Clark, Darcie Brown, Sophie Ecclestone, Ellie Johnston, Eleanor Larosa, Bridget Patterson, Maddie Penna, Tabatha Saville, Amanda-Jade Wellington, Laura Wolvaardt
It followed an ODI World Cup campaign where McGrath also looked out of sorts. Demoted down to No.7 and only used sparingly with the ball, she hit 55 runs in four innings and bowled just 6.5 wicketless overs.
The 30-year-old's Big Bash season has been below the heights of previous years, including last season where she hit 222 runs in nine innings striking at 127.58, while in WBBL|09 she captured 14 wickets as the Strikers won the title.
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"There's probably no shying away from the fact that my performance been pretty below par," McGrath said of her returns in WBBL|11.
"Cricket's a pretty brutal game at times, but you can't really dwell on that.
"There are four really big games coming up, and I'd like to back myself in and hope that I can play a really big part and contribute to some team success.
"So, I've kind of got to park what's happened and then look forward to hopefully some big team and individual success coming up."
Sydney Thunder v Strikers: Phoebe Litchfield (c), Chamari Athapaththu, Sam Bates, Ella Briscoe, Lucy Finn, Hasrat Gill, Laura Harris, Shabnim Ismail, Heather Knight, Anika Learoyd, Taneale Peschel, Georgia Voll, Tahlia Wilson
McGrath, and the majority of the international players involved in WBBL|11, came into the tournament directly from a two-month stint in India for the ODI World Cup. However the national vice-captain said she was not going to use the busy schedule to make excuses.
"That's the nature of cricket at the moment," she said.
"We're always on the road, tournament after tournament.
"So that's just part of being a professional cricketer (but) it's nice being in Adelaide."
That packed calendar could offer some insight into why McGrath was one of the few Australians not to put their name forward for the Women's Premier League auction, held last night.
The 2026 WPL tournament will be played in January, during one of the few windows the Australians will have at home between now and the end of the T20 World Cup in England next July.
While McGrath has not explained her thinking behind skipping the upcoming WPL, she opted out of the 2025 edition of The Hundred in August citing the desire to instead soak up time in Adelaide ahead of the ODI World Cup.
The Strikers sit sixth on the table with four games remaining and while mathematically, anything is possible – they can even still finish on top – realistically, they need to win the majority of their remaining matches and hope other results fall in their favour.
Making their mission tougher will be the impending departure of South Africa star Laura Wolvaardt, who will return home for international duties and miss the Strikers' final two regular-season games.
McGrath said Adelaide were still working through their replacement options, and hoped the club could now build momentum after they kept their hopes alive with a final-ball win over the Brisbane Heat on Tuesday.
"We were on the end of a close one in Perth that didn't go our way, so to come down to similar scenario, but to be on the winning side was really nice," McGrath said.
"Hopefully we can create a bit of winning momentum for us with four games left, get on a roll, and then hopefully be playing some finals cricket."
"I think we've been playing really good cricket in patches ... we just haven't strung that cliche 'perfect game' together.
"It'd be really nice to keep winning those key moments and be a little bit more clinical in those do-or-die moments in the game.
"We've got an amazing list, we've got some serious talent, and we've been showing glimpses, so it's exciting for me that we haven't been playing our best cricket, and we've been getting really close in a lot of games."
Weber WBBL|11 Standings
| Team | M | W | L | T | N/R | NRR | Ded. | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
HUR
|
10 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0.662 | 0 | 15 |
|
2
SIX
|
10 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | -0.313 | 0 | 13 |
|
3
SCO
|
10 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | -0.132 | 0 | 12 |
|
4
STA
|
10 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0.629 | 0 | 11 |
|
5
REN
|
10 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0.121 | 0 | 10 |
|
6
STR
|
10 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0.077 | 0 | 9 |
|
7
THU
|
10 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 1 | -0.124 | 0 | 9 |
|
8
HEA
|
10 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 1 | -0.869 | 0 | 1 |
M: Matches played
W: Wins
L: Losses
T: Ties
N/R: No results
NRR: Net Run Rate
Ded.: Deductions
PTS: Total points