The Melbourne Renegades have locked in one of its brightest talents amid a changing of guard at the Victorian BBL club
Melbourne Renegades young gun Jake Fraser-McGurk has penned a four-year deal with the club after a breakout Big Bash season in red.
The 21-year-old has committed to the Renegades until at least the end of BBL|17 after a campaign in which he has lived up to his potential, and topped the club’s run-scorers list.
Prior to KFC BBL|13, despite occasional flashes of brilliance including a stunning boundary catch in December 2021, Fraser-McGurk had struggled for consistency with the bat, and averaged just 11.63 after 24 innings.
However since being handed the No.3 spot in the Renegades’ order, the Victorian has thrived.
Commencing the season with a rapid 24-ball 48 against the Sydney Sixers, which included a six that landed on the SCG Members’ roof, Fraser-McGurk scored his first BBL half-century in his next innings with a devastating knock against the Brisbane Heat that included seven sixes.
That performance saw the cricketing public sit up, not least one of Australia’s greatest ever T20 players in Glenn Maxwell, who tweeted: “No one in Australia is better to watch then Fraser-McGurk. Easily the most talented young batter in the country. His potential doesn’t actually have a ceiling.”
On December 29 he again surpassed his highest BBL score, this time with a match-winning 70 off just 37 balls against the Strikers that propelled the Renegades to their first win of the season.
With veterans Aaron Finch and Shaun Marsh bowing out this season, Fraser-McGurk and vice-captain Will Sutherland are set to front the Renegades’ young core to drive the club forward, in a group that also contains the likes of Fergus O’Neill and Australia Under-19 star Harry Dixon.
“It was an easy decision for me and to be part of the club’s future is really exciting,” Fraser-McGurk said.
“I’ve made some great mates here; I love being part of this playing group.
“With Finchy and Marshy now moving on, it’s a changing of the guard, and I want to keep contributing to what is a really talented young group moving forward.
“I feel I’ve taken real strides this year as a batter, the Renegades have given me an opportunity to express myself out in the middle and it’s paying off.
“Hopefully in the next couple of seasons those contributions can translate to more wins and we can have another crack at a second title.”
Fraser-McGurk’s 257 runs to date in BBL|13 sees him ranked seventh in the competition’s run-scorers list, and comfortably the Renegades’ most prolific with the bat (the outgoing Marsh is second with 181).
His 18 sixes this season is bettered only by the league’s most in-form player in Matt Short, who has cleared the rope 25 times.
A breakout Big Bash campaign has not come from nowhere; Fraser-McGurk’s move from Victoria to South Australia in the off-season has proved immediately fruitful.
