Darke dominant as WA bag win in Tigers' den

Maddy Darke remained stranded on 98 but guided Western Australia to a dominant five-wicket win over Tasmania in the WNCL.

Chasing 223 for a victory, WA looked to be racing towards a bonus-point win at the Bellerive Oval when the opening pair of Darke (98 off 113) and captain Chloe Piparo (73 off 91) was motoring along unhindered by the Tasmanian bowling attack.

They eventually crossed the finish line in a stumbling fashion, but with 52 balls remaining.

The result has taken WA to fourth on the points table with three wins from seven games, the same win-loss ratio as the Tigers, but trailing their opponents of the round by a bonus point and on net run rate.

After going down to Queensland chasing in their last two games, Tasmanian captain Elyse Villani opted to put runs on the board on Wednesday morning, but her team didn't get the start it was after.

Chloe Ainsworth built the pressure with her miserly overs from one end, but Heather Graham (3-23) and Ebony Hoskin (3-48) were the chief destructors for WA, amounting for six of Tasmania's top seven.

Hoskin landed the first blow, taking out Ruth Johnston in the fourth over as the Tasmanian opener recorded a second no score in a row.

Three quick wickets from Graham then left the home side reeling on 4-50.

Courtney Sippel was the backbone of the Tigers' resistance, anchoring the innings in important partnerships with Naomi Stalenberg (36 oof 49), Hayley Silver-Holmes (27 off 41) and Lauren Smith (27 off 30) to push the total over 200.

Sippel's fighting knock came to an end when she holed out to deep mid-wicket on 60 (89) in an attempt to flick Zoe Britcliffe (2-46) to the boundary and the Tasmanian innings wrapped up soon after on the penultimate ball of their 50 overs.

In reply, the WA openers put up a mammoth 167-run partnership to take the game too far out of Tasmania's reach.

The breakthrough for the Tigers came via Johnston, who turned her fortunes from earlier in the day by removing Piparo and Mikayla Hinkley in quick succession.

Graham (23 off 21) kept WA in the running for the batting bonus with four boundaries but a miscued hit off Hayley Silver-Holmes ended her charge.

Silver-Holmes also dismissed Mathilda Carmichael and Bhavi Devchand soon after, but it was only good enough to delay WA's celebrations with the damage already done by the opening pair.

The flurry of wickets and being deprived of strike as her side closed in on the target saw Darke miss out on a hundred. But the talented wicketkeeper-batter is placed well to make it another big WNCL season as she sits just one shy of 300 runs after seven innings.

The two sides will meet again at the same venue on Friday.

WNCL 2025-26 standings

Team	Matches played M	Wins W	Losses L	Ties T	No results N/R	Net Run Rate NRR	Deductions Ded.	Batting Bonus Bat	Total points PTS
1 NSW Women NSW	6	6	0	0	0	1.253	0	3	27
2 Queensland Fire QLD	8	6	2	0	0	0.381	0	3	27
3 Tasmanian Tigers Women TAS	7	3	4	0	0	0.459	0	3	15
4 Western Australia Women WA	7	3	4	0	0	-0.063	0	2	14
5 South Australia Women SA	6	3	3	0	0	-0.4	0	1	13
6 ACT Meteors ACT	6	2	4	0	0	-0.279	0	1	9
7 Victoria Women VIC	6	0	6	0	0	-1.53	1	0	-1

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Wins

L: Losses

T: Ties

N/R: No results

NRR: Net Run Rate

Ded.: Deductions

Bat: Batting Bonus

PTS: Total points