Brisbane Heat defeated Sydney Thunder in the Knockout game to get through to the Challenger which will be played on Thursday (Feb 04). Heat are now two wins away from winning the BBL 10 championship while Thunder’s run in this edition of Big Bash League has come to an end with this match.
After being sent into bat first, Sydney Thunder top-order failed to score quick runs. Sam Billings (34 off 24), Usman Khawaja (28 off 30), Callum Ferguson (25 off 20) all contributed but no brisk innings at the top. All-rounder Ben Cutting towards the end of the innings played a cameo scoring an unbeaten 34 runs off 18 deliveries (1 four, 4 sixes) which took Thunder to 158/8 in 20 overs. Thunder would have liked another 15 to 20 runs to their total but their slow batting at the top was to be blamed here!
Among Heat bowlers, Mark Steketee and Mitchell Swepson bagged 2 wickets each while Ben Laughlin, Marnus Labuschagne, Morne Morkel shared a wicket apiece. Heat successfully chased a target in the Eliminator against Adelaide Strikers and this above-par target have not threatened them at all!
During the chase, both Heat openers were removed with just 14 runs on the board. And then Marnus Labuschagne and Sam Heazlett added 55 runs off 55 balls for the third wicket and that stand helped Heat remain in the hunt. Once Marnus departed, Heazlett and Jimmy Peirson scored briskly and their unbeaten 92*-run stand helped Heat chase down the target with 7 wickets in hand and 5 balls to spare in their innings!
Heazlett faced lot of criticism during his match-winning knock in this match! He scored just 27 runs from his first 30 balls but his next 47 runs has come off just 19 deliveries! He remained unbeaten on 74* off 49 deliveries in this 7-wicket victory. The latter part of the knock is what helped him earn some respect and more importantly a victory for Brisbane Heat! This knock also helped Heazlett bag the ‘Player of the Match’ award.
With this victory, Heat is now through to Challenger game in which they will face three-time champion Perth Scorchers! Heat won both their finals so far in this season and Scorchers stand in their way of making it to the Final. Who will win it? Comment below.
Brief Scores: Brisbane Heat – 162/3 in 19.1 overs (Sam Heazlett – 74*, Jimmy Peirson – 43*, Daniel Sams – 1/32, Brendan Doggett – 1/34) defeated Sydney Thunder – 158/8 in 20 overs (Ben Cutting – 34*, Sam Billings – 34, Mark Steketee – 2/22, Mitchell Swepson – 2/28) by a margin of 7 wickets
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