All Out for 124 and Still Winning: How Perth Scorchers' Bowling Buried Melbourne Stars

At Junction Oval on Monday night, the scoreboard tells one story and the innings trail tells another. Perth Scorchers were bowled out for just 124 in 20 overs, with a top score of 18 and their last wicket falling to a run out after Alana King hit her own foot, and that total was enough to dismiss Melbourne Stars for 109 in 18.1 overs, sealing a 15-run win with 11 balls unused. After years of watching matches like this, I have formed a habit of reading overs and pressure zones before I read a scorecard. What stands out first is that both batting units fell into the same trap, and Perth's trap happened to be 15 runs deeper. Perth's innings splits into two halves. They reached 36 without loss after the powerplay, then collapsed from 2-70 to 7-76, losing five wickets for six runs. At the center were Sophie Day and Maisy Gibson, whose contrasting spin pushed Perth's middle order into a position where surviving balls became more important than scoring. Day took two, Gibson two, with Annabel Sutherland and Charlie Dean adding one each, meaning seven of Perth's dismissals belonged to Stars' spin and allround options. Then comes the gap nobody filled. From 76 to 124, the last three wickets added 48 runs, and the report carries not a single line about who scored them or how. Without that, 124 remains a mystery to the reader. In my reading, that passage was the real turning point, because had Perth folded for 90, Stars would have chased 109 with comfort. Sophie Devine's 4-19 and King's 3-17 are the headline heroes, no doubt. But Stars' innings belongs to Meg Lanning, who made 41, roughly forty percent of her side's 109, and was the only batter who resisted Perth's spinners. Yet she is quoted nowhere. Lanning fell in the 14th over, described at one point as 5-79 and elsewhere as 6-79, with no bowler or mode of dismissal recorded. That inconsistency alone signals how hastily the piece was filed. I built the Suwon pressing map to see not where they ran, but where they were forced to look. This match reads the same way. Perth's 9-124 suggests batting failure, but the deeper picture is that Stars' spinners took seven of fourteen wickets and Perth's pair took seven, and Perth simply found 15 more runs. The headline names Devine and King, yet much of the copy is about Perth's batting collapse and Chloe Ainsworth's fielding, a first-ball wicket and two catches. Beth Mooney has taken the captaincy from Devine and contributed 17 runs plus two catches and a stumping. One factual caution is necessary. The report calls Charlie Dean England captain, which is not accurate in this period, when Heather Knight or Nat Sciver-Brunt have led. It also lists Devine as 37, though the September 2026 birthdate makes her 36 this season. Small errors, but they erode trust. The biggest lesson for me is a numerical anomaly almost nobody flagged: a side all out for 124 with a top score of 18. In modern T20 cricket that is rare, because such totals usually rest on one large individual innings. Here it rested on collective small contributions and extras, since nearly every batter reached double figures after the powerplay but none passed 20. That model only works when the bowling unit keeps the opposition under 110. Perth managed it; Stars did not, because outside Lanning the rest lost nine wickets for 68. A significant week now awaits Perth. On Thursday they face Sydney Thunder at Drummoyne Oval, both sides unbeaten. This match left a clear trap in front of them: the top order keeps falling cheaply, and against spin-heavy attacks another 124 is possible. But Thunder's batting line-up is less likely to fall into that kind of low-scoring snare. And on Friday at 7:10pm, again at Junction Oval, Stars meet Sydney Sixers. If Lanning's side are to find an answer this week, it lies in who stands beside her, because this night proved that one act of resistance and three spinners are never quite enough.