Ashleigh Gardner reaches 150 WBBL matches for Sydney Sixers

Sydney Sixers captain Ashleigh Gardner played her 150th Women's Big Bash League match on Thursday, Cricket Australia said in a statement.

Teammate Ellyse Perry is set to reach the same milestone on Sunday against the Renegades, and the pair are the only remaining members of the Sixers' WBBL|01 squad.

Gardner joined the Sixers as the sixth player signed for the inaugural 2015 season, and she said at the time that playing alongside her idols was a major reason for choosing the club.

Those idols included inaugural Sixers captain Perry, whom Gardner was then 18 years old and eager to play with.

Gardner, now the club's captain, said reaching 150 matches was something she was proud of.

"It's an absolute honour to be able to lead this side and hopefully play quite a few more," Gardner said.

The two players now stand side by side in the Australian squad as leading allrounders, and Gardner's rise to the national team ran alongside the early years of the WBBL.

Gardner made her white-ball debut for Australia in 2017, shortly after helping the Sixers win their first WBBL title.

In the current WBBL|12 season, Gardner has performed well with both bat and ball, and she was presented with the Golden Arm cap as the tournament's leading wicket-taker.

She is also in contention for the Golden Bat after posting a career-high 124 against the Hobart Hurricanes.

Sixers allrounder Melie Kerr praised Gardner's standing in the game.

"She's an exceptional cricketer, firstly," Kerr said of Gardner.

Perry was the Sixers' first signing when the club launched in July 2015, and she captained the team in the league's first season.

The Sixers recovered that season to reach the final, and they went on to win the title in WBBL|02 at the WACA Ground.

The WBBL began in 2015 as the women's counterpart to the men's Big Bash League, and it has since become a key domestic competition for Australian women's cricket.