Ahead of the 10th season of the KFC BBL, we continue our countdown of the most memorable moments in the tournament's history
Top 20 in 2020: Biggest BBL moments, No.5
Big sixes, great catches and thrilling finishes - the first nine seasons of the KFC Big Bash League has had all that and much, much more.
Top 20 Biggest BBL Moments: 20-18 | 17-15 | 14-12 | 11-9 | 8-6
To mark the competition's 10th season this summer, we're counting down 20 of the biggest moments from the competition's history, be they good, bad or just downright bizarre.
We continue today with No.5 in the countdown and will continue to re-live some more classic moments over the next four days.
5) Lynn hits Tait out of the Gabba
Brisbane Heat v Hobart Hurricanes, BBL|06
Image Id: B0359EB296A44102B9C95CB8E04FF2F7By Adam Burnett
Shaun Tait is staring at Chris Lynn from 20 paces.
The Wild Thing and Lynnsanity. The former a nickname, the latter by now more of a movement. Both appositely Big Bash.
Tait has just sent down a 148kph rocket – among the quickest deliveries of the summer. Instinctively and almost instantly, Lynn's synapses have fired into action, making calculations of line and length, and determining the delivery to be squarely in his hitting zone.
After a whip-crack backswing, willow meets leather at the perfect point in the arc, and a full-blooded follow-through sends Tait's rocket into orbit.
The ball soars beyond the mid-wicket boundary and continues its trajectory over the grandstand, out of the Gabba and into the adjoining practice nets 121 metres away.
Some 35,000 people leap to their feet in unison, and the collective roar is mind-numbing.
In the middle, Lynn breaks the stare-off with a timely wink, and Tait can only grin.
The replay is shown on the giant screen – the delivery, the swing, the six, the wink – and the crowd erupts all over again.
In Brisbane's packed-out coliseum, a gladiator rules.
If sixes are the currency of the Big Bash revolution, Lynn is the format's Bill Gates.
The numbers are staggering. Across 75 innings, he’s plundered 146 sixes, with roughly every 11th delivery he faces going over the rope. By way of comparison, Aaron Finch (83 sixes in 63 games) and Glenn Maxwell (80 in 73) are second and third on that list.
Image Id: 6E94D5EE956C42C7929AE899F746F249 Image Caption: Together, Lynn and McCullum were appointment viewing // GettyIt’s no coincidence the growth of the Big Bash League paralleled Lynn's ascension, and vice versa.
Incredibly, when you consider his injuries, he has been one of the tournament's most bankable stars, appearing more times for the Heat than anyone bar Ben Cutting, and scoring the most runs in the tournament’s history.
Across two extraordinary Big Bash summers from 2015 to 2017, he plundered 53 maximums in 13 matches at a tick over four an innings. No other player managed more than 22 in that time.
In BBL|05, he hit former Test quick Ben Hilfenhaus for five consecutive sixes at the MCG. The following season, he hit 11 against the Scorchers – the most miserly attack in the tournament, and the eventual champions.
But if there was one single moment across those two memorable seasons that summed up Lynnsanity, it was that wink.
Balls had been hit out of the Gabba before. Brett Lee famously did it in a Test match against the West Indies more than a decade earlier, and Dan Christian did it just 12 months before the Brisbane Heat star.
But neither responded like Lynn, whose appeal as the hometown hero has and continues to play a major role in the Heat finding itself as a club, and what it represents to its fans.
"You look at Brisbane and our identity is based around Lynny in a lot of ways; his style of play and us complementing that," then coach Daniel Vettori said in 2017.
"So when people talk about the Brisbane Heat, they talk about Lynny, they talk about the style of play, they talk about how far he can hit the ball.
“And when you have teams where people identify with one player or a couple of individuals, then you see that identity grow."
Return to cricket.com.au tomorrow as we continue our countdown of the most memorable moments in BBL history
Top 20 Biggest BBL Moments (so far)
20) BBL makes bloody big impact
19) Bob Quiney and the seagull
18) Dan Christian hits the roof
17) Zampa uses his head to get a wicket
16) Peter Handscomb arrives
15) Lynn hits five sixes in a row
14) Magician Malinga takes six of the best
13) Gayle equals world record for fastest fifty
12) Warne commentates McCullum’s wicket
11) McDermott's miracle under the roof
10) Morgan's last-ball fairytale
9) Warne v Samuels adds fire to the BBL
8) Laughlin & Weatherald's stunning double act
7) The leave that stopped the nation
6) Jordan Silk's Gabba stunner
5) Lynn hits Tait out of the Gabba