All aboard: How the Hurricanes built a title-contending team

Elyse Villani's noticed something special about the Hurricanes in Weber WBBL|11.

The Hobart captain can't quite put her finger on what it is – she just knows it's right.

A squad-building mission years in the making has finally clicked, with the Hurricanes the clear frontrunners throughout the tournament as they locked in their first appearance in a WBBL Final.

Now, only the Perth Scorchers stand in the way of Hobart claiming their first women's Big Bash title.

"I do feel like it has been a journey, and certainly a lot of people have helped pave the way to help this current group get to where we are," Villani said on Hobart on Friday.

"It's almost like when you when you don't have it (right), things seem really obvious, and you're like, 'Okay, we need to do this, we need to do that, we need to build this'.

"But then when you have that feeling in the change room, you can't necessarily put your finger on why that is that you have it, things just feel a little bit easier.

"You feel like you're all on the same page. It feels like the group's connected with a shared goal.

"It also feels as though the culture is in check as well, and people are enjoying themselves – that's the most important thing – and you're riding the waves as consistently as possible."

Despite threatening in recent seasons, the Hurricanes remain the only team to have never won a WBBL knockout game, and the unique nature of the league's finals system means this season they've advanced to the Final, capital F, without needing to win an elimination game to get there.

It's the closest they have been to the title since WBBL|01 and |02, when they were back-to-back semi-finalists.

The years following those first two seasons were a slog for the 'Cane train, as they finished bottom of the table three times in four years during a five-season long finals drought.

The journey to Ninja Stadium on Saturday has been a slow build years in the making, borne largely of recruitment, given the state's smaller population – and the fact Tasmania only joined the Women's National Cricket League in 2010-11 – means the Hurricanes, and Tasmania, have not historically enjoyed the same level of talent coming through the underage pathways as other states. 

That remains a work in progress and in the meantime, the Hurricanes, led by general manager of high-performance Salliann Beams and coach Jude Coleman, looked far and wide to assemble a group capable of winning a title.

First came the recruits from the Thunder: Nicola Carey in 2019, followed by Lauren Smith in 2020.

Molly Strano crossed from the Renegades in 2021, while Queenslander Ruth Johnston was also added to the mix.

Villani, from the Stars, and Heather Graham (Scorchers) and Rachel Trenaman (Thunder) followed in 2022.

Hayley Silver-Holmes signed a Tasmania contract in 2021 before she'd even graduated high school, moving down from Sydney, while Lizelle Lee is famously the overseas player turned local after gaining her permanent residency. 

All also chose to make Tassie their full-time home with Tigers state contracts – although Strano and Graham have since returned to Victoria and WA for personal reasons – as the Hurricanes developed a strong core group consistent across both white-ball formats.

That recruitment formed the backbone of a team that would go on to win three consecutive domestic 50-over titles for Tasmania from 2022-2024.

But WBBL success continued to elude the Hurricanes, and that's where the overseas recruitment came in this year – with an extra spot made available following Lee's transition to a local.

Experienced English opener Danni Wyatt-Hodge was an obvious retention pick at the draft after a promising first season in purple in WBBL|10, followed by a spinner hitting her peak in Linsey Smith.

The pièce de résistance, of course, was the bombshell pre-signing of superstar England allrounder Natalie Sciver-Brunt.

Suddenly, and the Hurricanes had one of the most formidable line-ups in the league heading into WBBL|11.

Even a hamstring injury to leggie Amy Smith – notably the only Tassie-born player in the squad – who starred last season and hasn't been available at all this tournament, couldn't stop their rise to the top of the table.

"Everyone knows that they've probably got the best squad, best list in the competition," Scorchers captain Sophie Devine said on Friday.

"Their recruitment has been really strong, and they've been leading this competition the whole way through.

"The way that their batting is going, as it should with the line-up they've got, but also with the ball too ... my old mate, 'Junior' Elyse Villani, when you've got a leader like her that can just rally the troops and has a really strong sense of how she wants the team to play, people buy into that."

Curiously, the Hurricanes' opponents in tonight's final, the Perth Scorchers, are another club whose success has relied heavily on recruitment.

Of the 13-player squad they named on Friday, only rising quick Chloe Ainsworth can lay claim to being a born-and-bred Western Australian.

Graham, who has ties to both sides as a WA-contracted Hurricanes allrounder, said lifting the trophy would be an enormous moment for Tasmanian cricket.

"I think what Sal's been able to put together over the last couple years as a group, it's been amazing to be a part of," Graham said this week.

"And I think the group that we have this year, we should definitely lift that trophy ... but it's all even when it comes to game day on Saturday."

Villani, meanwhile, knows the importance of grabbing the moment when it is in front of you – and in keeping a good group together.

The former Australia opener has played in three losing WBBL finals during her tenures at the Scorchers and Stars, and a Big Bash title would be the icing on a decorated career that's included multiple T20 World Cup wins and WNCL triumphs.

"It's just about holding on to that (feeling as a group) for as long as possible, because you know that any given day or any given season that can disappear pretty quickly," Villani said.

"The vibes are really high in the changerooms, the girls are having a lot of fun.

"Everyone's connected, the support staff, the backroom staff, the players and it's something that's just really special at the moment, we've just got to do everything we can to hold on to it."

WBBL|11 finals schedule

The Knockout: Perth Scorchers beat Melbourne Stars by 28 runs

The Challenger: Perth Scorchers beat Sydney Sixers by 11 runs, North Sydney Oval (Thursday, December 11, 7.15pm AEDT)

The Final: Hobart Hurricanes v Perth Scorchers, Ninja Stadium (Saturday, December 13, 7.15pm AEDT)