Brisbane Heat bowl Hobart out for 86 and win by 10 wickets with 86 balls to spare

Brisbane Heat needed just 34 balls to overhaul Hobart's 86 at Bellerive Oval, winning by 10 wickets to stretch their run to four straight

The Hurricanes were bowled out for 86 in 17.5 overs after Brisbane Heat won the toss and chose to bowl, and the target of 87 was gone inside six overs.

Grace Harris finished unbeaten on 52 from 22 balls and Charli Knott on 34 from 12, their opening stand worth 88 when the winning runs came with 86 balls to spare.

For Hobart it was the bluntest statement yet of a season that has not started. The side that won the WBBL title last summer, its first, is still without a win from six matches.

Three wickets gone in the powerplay

Hobart lost three wickets inside the first six overs and never recovered the ground. Lizelle Lee, whose unbeaten 77 decided last season's final on this same ground, was the first to go for 3 from 6 balls with the score on 3.

Lily Bassingthwaighte removed her and finished with 3-25 from four overs, following the three-wicket haul she took against the same opponents at Allan Border Field last week.

Lauren Smith top-scored with 20. Nobody else passed that mark, and the innings closed with one ball of the 18th over unused.

Hobart had gone in expecting a surface with bounce and carry and the chance of early swing off the Derwent. It behaved that way, but only one side used it.

Harris and Knott finish it in 34 balls

Harris struck eight fours and two sixes and reached fifty at better than two runs a ball. Knott, who opened alongside her, hit four fours and two sixes in her 12.

Neither was dismissed. Hobart got through six overs of bowling before the chase ended, and the margin of 10 wickets is as complete a result as the format allows.

Knott came into the match as the competition's form batter, having made a 61-ball 104 earlier in the season for her first Big Bash century. "Opening the batting has been a challenge for me, especially last year, but it's nice to make some headway this year," she said earlier this month.

A title defence without a win

Hobart began the day eighth on the ladder, on nought from five, with a net run rate of -1.25. Two of those five defeats were decided on the final ball.

This one offered no such consolation, and it will push their run rate further down at a point in the season when that figure starts to matter.

Four matches remain. On the arithmetic they now need to win all of them and hope, and the defence of the title they won in December looks close to finished.

The Heat keep climbing

Brisbane arrived third, on six points from five matches, and leave with eight. It is their fourth win in succession and their fourth from six overall.

They named an unchanged squad for the trip, the same group that beat the Melbourne Stars at Junction Oval, where captain Georgia Redmayne made 74 not out and passed 3,000 career runs. Harris is the only other player in the squad past that mark.

A win of this size does more than add two points. It repairs a net run rate that stood at 0.092 before the match and that may yet separate the Heat from the sides below them.

Where both sides go next

The Heat fly home on Sunday and play the Sydney Thunder at Allan Border Field on Thursday, the first of three home fixtures in a run that will shape their finals position.

Hobart face the Perth Scorchers next, then the Thunder back at Bellerive Oval. Nothing short of four wins keeps the question open.

Scorecard: Hobart Hurricanes Women 86 all out (17.5 overs); Brisbane Heat Women 88 for 0 (5.4 overs) — Brisbane Heat Women won by 10 wickets.