Adelaide Strikers vs Sydney Sixers,Adelaide Report: Lumb fifty steers Sixers home
Michael Lumb scored a valuable fifty
A high-quality innings from Michael Lumb and some late fireworks from Marcus North took the Sydney Sixers to thrilling six-wicket victory over Adelaide Strikers and climbed to second spot in BBL table. A poor batting performance and some ordinary fielding cost Strikers the match as Sydney Sixers chased down the target of 150 with five balls to spare.
It was good batting display by Sixers. Although they lost the wicket of Maddinson in the second over, a controlled innings from Lumb kept Sixers in the game. He shared a salvaging partnership of 46 runs for the second wicket with Henriques before Shakib-ul-Hasan trapped Henriques for 26. Subsequently Marcus North and Michael Lumb responded to the situation really well as they didn’t play any ramp shots.
They knew that one good partnership could change the course of the game. That’s exactly what happened as the duo put on 48 runs for the third wicket to take the game away from Strikers. Lumb began the chase with a flick of Michael Naser over deep backward square leg for a huge six. However, he was dropped in the same over when Naser failed to hold onto a caught and bowled chance. North, on the other hand, got off to a brisk start. However, he didn’t look to attack the bowlers as Lumb was sublime touch.
After the wicket of Lumb in the 14th over, it was North who had to attack the opposition. Ravi Bopara and Marcus North managed only 15 runs in the next three overs which opened up the contest. Sixers were in a good position, but the loss of Lumb had an impact to the req. run rate. Naser and Shakib-ul-Hasan did not give enough room for North to free his arms in the death overs, but North struck two glorious sixes in the 17th over to bring down the equation to 20 runs off 18 balls.
However North was dismissed by Richardson (38) in the 18th over with Sixers needing just 19 runs off 16 balls. But Bopara held his nerve and finished the game for Sixers in most grand fashion.
Shakib-ul-Hasan was the pick of the bowlers as he grabbed two wickets at 5.25 and Richardson and Tait settled for one apiece.
The main reason for Strikers loss is poor batting display. They slumped to 32/4 in 7.4 overs. However Reardon and Shakib-ul-Hasan’s partnership helped them to post a score that could have been defended by their bowlers.
Here’s the Scorecard