• Home
  • Cricket News
  • Started From The Bottom Now Were Here Scorchers Roll Over Heat To Reach Bbl Finals

Started from the bottom now we're here: Scorchers roll over Heat to reach BBL finals

"Started from the bottom now we're here", this has exactly been the story of the Perth Scorcher, who won eight out of their last nine league games to make it to the BBL Final. Today also they put in an exemplary performance with both bat and ball, defeating Brisbane Heat by a huge margin of 49 runs in a rain-curtailed affair at the Manuka Oval. Liam Livingstone was the hero with the bat for the Scorchers while Jason Behrendorff gave early jolts to the Heat. 

With this win, the Scorchers go to the SCG in Sydney where they will face the Sixers who defeated them in the Qualifiers early on at the Manuka oval. 

Chasing a revised target of 200 in just 18 overs, the Scorchers couldn’t get the desired result as skipper Chris Lynn got out early, without putting an impactful performance as was expected from him. Eventually, the entire team came falling as the pressure of scoring at such a high rate from the very first ball got big on them. 

Joe Burns tried his best to keep the fight going, but it was too much to ask of him. As soon as heroes from the previous games like Jimmy Peirson and Marnus Labuschagne got out under the pressure it went all downhill for the Brisbane Heat. Burns’ 38 of 24 was the highest individual score from Brisbane while chasing 200 which tells us a sorry tale of the chase. Behrendorff took two early wickets and was helped by the likes of Aaron Hardie and Andrew Tye in cleaning up the tail as they both took three and two wickets respectively. 

Earlier in the day, Heat won the toss and put Scorchers in. The Scorchers made the most of that opportunity as they built a great opening partnership of 114 runs with Liam Livingstone hitting 77 off just 39 balls to destroy the Heat bowling attack, which has been the USP of the Lynn led side in the finals. Neither of the spinners in Mitchell Swepson and Labuschagne could get going, rather Labuschagne was taken to the cleaners as he conceded 36 in his two overs.

Mitchell Marsh followed in Livingstone’s footsteps as he too scored a quickfire 49* off just 28 balls to get Perth to 189-1 in 18.1 overs. Cameron Bancroft, Livingstone’s opening partner played the anchor role scoring 58*, while the latter was awarded the Man of the Match for his brilliant performance. 

Speaking on his performance, Livingstone said, “I have been working hard but haven't had the best of the tournament, so nice to get some runs under the belt and now looking forward to the final.” 

Not being able to play their Challengers at home, Livingstone said that the team would look to win the Trophy and bring it home for the fans who missed the game due to covid-19 restrictions. 

“There will be a bit of spice (against the Sixers) especially after what happened in the Qualifier. It will be good to play in front of a full crowd again. Hopefully, we can bring it home on Saturday,” he said. 

Powered by Froala Editor

Powered by Froala Editor

Discover more
Top Stories
news

Kohli says Indian players discussed farmers’ protest in team meeting

Indian skipper Virat Kohli has said that the Indian team discussed the farmers’ protest issue in the team meeting. The farmers’ issue and Indian cricket got connected as all the major Indian cricketers tweeted a similar tweet with the hashtag #IndiaTogether. "Any issue which is present in the country, we do talk about it & everyone has expressed what they had to say about the issue. We briefly spoke about it in the team meeting and then we carried on discussing the team's plans," Kohli said that in the pre-match press conference in Chennai. Indian cricketers, both former and current including former greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble too tweeted with the same hashtag and it was supposed to be an answer to the Rihanna and Greta Thornberg tweets supporting the farmers’ strike going on in Delhi. "Let us all stay united in this hour of disagreements. Farmers are an integral part of our country and I'm sure an amicable solution will be found between all parties to bring about peace and move forward together," Kohli had tweeted on Wednesday, 04th February. Kohli, 32, also talked about his love for the game saying that the hunger to play for India and win games while playing would not go until and unless he retires. "I can never lose my love for cricket and I was always connected to my team even when away. I will continue to enjoy my cricket and taking Indian cricket forward and that is how it will be till the day I retire,” said Kohli.

news

Services batsman Rahul Singh hopes for IPL contract post successful SMAT 2021

“I kept myself calm and focused on my game which helped me during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy because initially I was under bit of a pressure that I wasn’t scoring runs in the shorter format,” says Services batsman Rahul Singh who scored 244 runs in five matches in SMAT. In an exclusive interaction with OneCricket, Singh talks about his SMAT performance, IPL selections and COVID-19. Talk to us about your SMAT performance. I had a good run in SMAT and want to continue that in Vijaya Hazare Trophy. I’m happy that I have been among runs in the T20 format too. I was scoring runs in days cricket and one day format and have now scored some runs in shorter format too. Are you expecting to get selected for IPL this time? The franchise do keep an eye on you if you scoring runs in domestic cricket especially in T20 format. So, I have scored runs and hope some franchise acknowledges that. But at the end of the day it is a process, it’s good if I get selected but if I’m not, it won’t affect me and I would rather concentrate on my own game. Though, I have given trails for Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals. What do you think about holding Vijay Hazare trophy and not Ranji? Well, Ranji Trophy is not having because there is not much time so holding a full-fledged Vijaya Hazare is surely a better option. How did you keep fit during COVID-19? We did a lot of home workout during the COVID-19. But to be honest, we have realised that home workouts are not enough. We all are putting in more effort now to compensate on the time we lost during the pandemic. Do you get disappointed when you get unnoticed for India call-up? Yes, there is a bit of disappointment but that is because I feel that I didn’t perform to an extent that I get noticed. So I try to focus on doing better. For example, I was focusing on T20s this time because I was not able to perform that well in this format. What changes did you make to play the shorter format? The technique wasn’t a problem though but certainly my mindset was. So I had a chat with my father and he suggested me to stay calm. This did work for me and I started scoring runs with a better strike-rate as compared to earlier seasons. My natural game is attacking so I just went with instincts. Moreover, I practiced more and played more balls in the nets. I had a gut feeling that if I play my natural game and not get under pressure, I would be able to score runs and it did happen. Tell us about your routine. In the morning we have out fitness session while we go for our nets in the day time. I go for practice on my own in the break time that we get in the middle. What went wrong in the SMAT 2021? Actually, we lost a lot of time due to COVID-19 outburst. We were not able to get that span for practice and subsequently we didn’t get the momentum. We did try to give our best but certainly that wasn’t enough. Would there be any team changes? Actually, we have a respective combination for all the tournaments so there would be a little bit of tweak in the squad not much.