Defending champions Sydney Sixers turned their fortunes around with one of the most commanding performance in the history of the Big Bash League. After scoring 205 runs in the first innings Sixers wrapped Melbourne Renegades for 60 runs in just 10.4 overs defeating them by 145 runs, the biggest margin in BBL history.
Coming into a steep chase, the Aaron Finch led team kept making things hard for themselves losing wickets in quick successions. Ben Dwarshuis and Steve O’Keefe were the pick of the bowlers picking seven wickets between them.
Welcome to the Josh Philippe & Jordan Silk show
Starting at a snail’s pace and losing a couple of wickets early in the game, the story of Sixers batting in the powerplay was of eternal struggle. And then Josh Philippe got dropped in the 7th over.
Brought into the attack right after the powerplay, Beau Webster was beaten in the flight trying to play a straight drive. He clipped the ball and startled Webster trying to grab a head-high chance made a complete meal of it. Sixers were 42/2 at that point.
Philippe, struggling at 27 off 24 going into the 9th over had had enough.
Starting to accelerate, Phillipe reached his half-century in the 12th over off 36 balls and then coupled with some astonishing hitting by Jordan Silk (45 off 19) in the Power Surge, Sixers stormed to 150/3 in the end of 15, yielding 98 runs in the last six overs.
Philippe came agonisingly close to score the first century by a Sixer but was caught trying to clear the cover fielder at 95. A quick cameo by Dan Christian (11 off 13) saw Sixers go past 200 runs, the first in this year’s competition.
Renegades shoot themselves in the foot
Everything that could go wrong, went wrong for Melbourne Renegades. They found the outfield players to perfection, probably chose poor shots but these at the end of the day are anything but ‘get out of jail’ card for a team that brought up just 60 runs for the loss of 10 wickets in just 10.4 overs surrendering all four points to a far superior team on the day.
The batting display by Renegades was in stark contrast to what they did in their last game where they comfortably chased down 131 runs in 16.3 overs. Stars of that game, Aaron Finch and Shaun Marsh departed cheaply for 12 and 13 respectively inside 7 overs and with a steep target of 206, no one was able to fight back.
Ben Dwarshuis picked his career-best 4/13 bowling 2.4 overs while the veteran O’Keefe picked up three prized wickets for just 16 runs in his three.
The Renegades fans can choose not to make much out of their mockery of a run chase. There is sizeable evidence where Aaron Finch has bounced from a horrible game to demolish elite attacks in the world. These are early phases of the tournament but Sixers for sure will be over the moon with their performance considering the tight game they lost against Hobart Hurricanes in the season opener. The brilliance of Jordan Silk in the crease and out in the field will be a major talking point this season and Sixers fan would hope that he continues his patch for the next two months.
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