BBL08 Match 12: Surface, Seam and Spin Secure Sixers Victory

Though we are only a couple of weeks into the BBL competition there is already a feeling of a split in the better teams from the average, whether it be from a talent level or an experience level. The teams who are at full strength look to be a class above those teams that are still mixing and matching beyond the players they have available in their squad. Given this is the case the Renegades and the Sixers looked an easy pick in a season of tough choices. It proved not to be the case.

The Sixers were sent in as is becoming the norm this season, and at 3/25 after six overs it looked to be the correct decision. Still, the main cause for dissention is that no one still seems to know what a defendable score batting first is, which means that if you can hold out and just cobble out every run then you may just have enough. The pitch at Marvel Stadium has already been shown to be difficult to score quickly on, which means that less exciting methods have to be used to create a winning total. This is what the Sixers batsmen were forced to achieve. They hit only five boundaries and three sixes in their twenty overs, with Henriques (20 off 20), Silk (30 off 33), Philippe (20 off 13) and Curran (23* off 15) building the total to 7/132. It was a similar total to the one that they achieved just two nights ago at the SCG, a total that was chased down by the Stars with relative ease. But that was on a different surface, one that looks to come on to the bat better than this one under the roof.

Skipper Moises Henriques got his bowlers on song from the start. Pace bowlers Curran (3/18) and Abbott (2/16) hit their lengths perfectly to take the early wickets, before spin took over. Steve O’Keefe again showed his poise in this form of the game, taking two wickets in two deliveries and stifling the run rate to finish with 2/19, while debutante off spinner Ben Manenti had a debut to remember, taking the wickets of top scorer Mackenzie Harvey for 30 and Cameron White for 1 in a breakout spell of four straight overs which cost him the miserly figures of 2/13. It was the perfect innings by the Sixers, as the constant flow of wickets stopped any effort to increase the run rate, and eventually led to a massive victory by 33 runs.