'Genuine No.11' turns IPL game-winner

If any of Billy Stanlake's Sunrisers Hyderabad teammates had glanced at his batting stats before their match on Thursday, they might not have had much confidence when the enormous speedster faced up for the final ball of the match a few hours later.

With a grand total of 11 runs from his 34-game career and a high score of four not out, Stanlake, by his own admission, would have been nobody's first choice for the scenario he found himself thrown into in front of a packed Indian Premier League crowd.

He had never hit a boundary in any form of professional cricket. Even for his Queensland Premier Cricket side Gold Coast, Stanlake routinely bats at No.11 and has a highest club score of 13 not out (off 10 balls) in 2011.

That said, the left-hander had only batted four times before in 26 domestic and international T20s.

His most famous moment at the crease had come in a 2015 domestic one-day game against Western Australia when he left a ball off Mitchell Johnson that cannoned into middle and leg stump.

Asked about his approach to batting in 2014 by the ACA, Stanlake said, "Just try and stay in at the end – I'm a genuine No.11."

So with scores level in Hyderabad and the Mumbai Indians' field all up saving a single, Stanlake stunned everyone. 

The left-hander not only read Ben Cutting's slower ball angled towards his stumps, but waited and adjusted accordingly, before heaving the ball high over the leg-side for the match-winning boundary.

It capped off a topsy-turvy game in which Hyderabad, the side that suspended batsman David Warner captained to the 2016 title, lost 5-40 chasing Mumbai's 147 to leave them needing 11 off the final over.

Sunrisers No.6 Deepak Hooda smashed a six off the first ball but left Stanlake to finish the job and put the undefeated hosts top of the IPL ladder after two games.

"It was one of those games that comes down to the wire," said Kane Williamson, Warner's replacement as Hyderabad skipper.

"At the halfway stage I thought it was going to be scrappy because the wicket was slowing up. 

"The last ball can go either way so it was nice to win."

Despite his heroics, few would forecast a move up the order for the promising Stanlake and the fast bowler is unlikely to be angling for one.

Many good judges have tipped the 204cm-tall quick for big things, with former Australia captain Ricky Ponting recently suggesting he's got all the tools to become one of the greats of the game.

The 23-year-old, limited to T20 duties this summer after a toe infection that was close to requiring an amputation derailed the first half of his summer, collected 19 wickets at 22 across the Big Bash and Australia's T20 tri-series.

"I just love the look of what he's got," Ponting told cricket.com.au in February. "He's almost seven feet tall, bowls close to 150 kilometres an hour, he can swing the new ball.

"He's got a little nasty streak in him as well – he likes bowling bouncers.

"When we see him get a bit more of a tank and grow into his body a bit more and put on a little bit of weight, I think he's someone that could be one of the all-time great fast bowlers.

"That's all there ahead of him, we just hope he stays in one piece and becomes the kind of cricketer we all think he can be."