ESPNcricinfo Awards 2024 women's T20 leagues bowling winner: A hurricane called Perry

It was a day when it seemed Perry had a personal vendetta against the off stump - she pegged it back three times before uprooting it altogether, in the course of picking up the best figures in the WPL's short history.

Heading into the game, RCB's eighth of the season, Perry hadn't yet taken a wicket in her four innings. She was brought into the attack right after the powerplay in Delhi and induced a false shot off her first ball. On a surface where the other bowlers could not extract much, she had the ball hopping around.

The carnage began in Perry's second over, the ninth of the game. Sajeevan Sajana, who had raced to 30 off 20 balls, was cleaned up wafting at one that took her inside edge and thudded into off stump. Next came a length ball well outside off that Harmanpreet Kaur inside-edged back onto her stumps.

Amelia Kerr denied Perry a hat-trick on her next ball, but she couldn't keep her out for long - on the first ball of her next over, Perry pinged her on her back pad. Two balls later she cleaned up Amanjot Kaur with a peach of an in-dipper. Six balls on, Pooja Vastrakar played all around another inswinger that sent her off stump reeling, and Perry had five. But she still had three balls left, the last of which she used to trap Nat Sciver-Brunt lbw.

By the time she was done, MI had collapsed from 65 for 1 to 82 for 7. Perry's figures were the first six-for in the WPL, and they helped RCB get a foot in through the playoffs door.

Getting Harmanpreet for a golden duck ranks right up among the best, but Perry's cleaning up of Amanjot was one of the dismissals of the tournament. Having been hit for a four the previous ball, Perry went wide of the crease eyeing off stump. The ball pitched on a good length well outside off and deviated sharply back in to Amanjot. Able to neither go back nor forward, she was stuck in her crease and could only feebly jab at the ball, which breached her defences.

6 The most wickets taken by any bowler in an innings in the WPL

2 Perry's haul was the second-best for an Australian bowler in all T20s

"I had a chocolate brownie with the girls and some ice cream. I then went to my room, put on my red-light glasses and read a few chapters of a book and fell asleep."
- Ellyse Perry on how she celebrated her record-breaking feat

Lucy Hamilton
5 for 8 vs Melbourne Stars, WBBL, Sydney
Hamilton, all of 18 and having gone wicketless in her first six WBBL innings, ripped through the Stars batting unit in a sensational spell. Coming into the attack in the fifth over, the Brisbane Heat left-arm quick first castled opener Yastika Bhatia before sending back opposition captain Annabel Sutherland three balls later. She then removed Meg Lanning, Tess Flintoff and Deepti Sharma to finish with barely believable figures. Twenty of the 24 balls she bowled were dots and she claimed the joint-second best returns in WBBL history.