Teen a silver lining as Canes ponder what could have been

In a season where little seemed to go right for Hobart Hurricanes, the emergence of teenage allrounder Ruth Johnston was one shining light.

The Hurricanes will miss finals for a fifth straight season, despite a busy off-season recruitment campaign that added Molly Strano and Mignon du Preez to an already talented list.

Looking to avoid finishing eighth for the fourth time in five years, the Hurricanes upset ladder leaders Melbourne Renegades on Friday, and in a heartening sign for the future it was 18-year-old Johnson who produced the player-of-the-match performance, starring with bat and ball.

Opening the batting alongside skipper Rachel Priest, Johnston hammered a career-best 63 from 46 balls, before taking the key wickets of Harmanpreet Kaur and Jess Duffin with her off-spin as the Hurricanes posted a surprise 52-run win.

Johnston, a Queenslander who was handed her first WBBL contract by Hobart this season, was thrust into the opening role at the start of WBBL|07 when the Hurricanes' plans A and B fell through; South African Lizelle Lee pulled out of the tournament and Rachel Trenaman suffered a knee injury.

She hit 47 in her fourth innings and while she was dropped down the order after a string of single-digit scores, her bowling became an unexpected option for Priest as she took 11 wickets at 17.

"I don't think (her bowling) was in our plans at first, we knew she'd scored a lot of runs in club cricket in Queensland and that's why we were looking at her," Priest told cricket.com.au earlier this week.

"Then she had a bowl in the nets when she first came down to Tassie and she looked pretty good.

"Ruth's turned out to be one of our key bowlers, she's bowled in some difficult times and to some really good batters.

"I don't know if it's her age or what it is, but she's so calm under pressure."

The Hurricanes moved to sixth following their win over the Renegades but will miss finals for a fifth consecutive season.

Reflecting on where it can gone awry, Priest pointed to the batting unit as one area that had been unable to produce consistent performances; South African du Preez has hit 327 runs to sit ahead of Priest on the run tally, but their next most productive batters after that are Johnson (199 runs) and Australia allrounder Nicola Carey (179 runs at 14.91).

"There's no denying I haven't gone to plan for us, I think we've got a really good team, and for whatever reason, we just haven't been able to click batting wise this season," Priest said.

"Mignon has been great for us, she's held us together at different stages, and there's been some great cameos … but we just haven't managed to probably put enough partnerships together throughout the tournament."

Two narrow early defeats and a packed schedule through the first three weeks in Tasmania meant the Hurricanes never found the sort of momentum that is crucial in a whirlwind tournament like the WBBL.

"It's hard to move it back the other way if it's not going to plan," Priest continued.

"Potentially our season could have been going the other way if we've managed to get over the line in one or two of those games.

"I just think when you look at us on paper, we're really good side (and) I don't know the team we have on paper is the team who should be last. 

"That's just a bit frustrating because we are better than that, and we just haven't put enough performances together."