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So that will be it from the SCG today, but join us again tomorrow for a double-header in the BBL to further decide the look of the top 5 for the playoffs! What you can also do, is switch tabs right now to find out what is happening in the ODIs between India and New Zealand in Raipur and between Zimbabwe and Ireland in Harare. For now, this is Bidipto, saying good bye. Keep following Sportskeeda!
Sydney Sixers - 187/2, beat Sydney Thunder - 62 all out, by 125 runs with 4 overs and 2 balls to spare, in this 19-over-a-side match.
Steve Smith 125* (66) | Steve O'Keefe - 4/10 David Warner 16 (23) | Gurinder Sandhu - 2/42
We were hoping for a David Warner masterclass after a Steve Smith special at the SCG, but sadly, that was not to be! And as for a contest, this game was far from it, as the Sixers completely ripped off the Thunder and owned the stage today!
The pitch started to grip and turn a lot more and the pace off the surface was not ideal for hitting either through or across the line. And the Thunder suffered big time, as a result of that. David Warner hung in there for quite some time but failed to get his timing going. The rest of the batting threw away the opportunities to get in and go big after that, with regular fall of wickets.
But the bowling and fielding from the home team was special to say the least! Steve O'Keefe and Todd Murphy with their finger-spinners were tough to negotiate and the change of pace from all the seamers from both slow to fast and fast to slow, worked wonders. Ground fielding and catching, in particular, was spotless.
This is a side trying really hard to push for the top spot and if they keep going like this, it may well happen!
But the innings, or the performance of the match, belongs to Steve Smith! His batting tonight, was on another level. He made a 130-140 wicket turn into a 180 one with his extraordinary skills with the bat. However, his dodgy back is not quite helping him much and the Sixers will do well to give him some timely rest going forward, before the playoffs.
At the moment though, Sydney Sixers are on 19 points in the second position, while Sydney Thunder remain on 12 points with some work to do if they have to make the top 5 finally.
Steve O'Keefe: The wicket slowed down a fraction and gripped too I reckon, so things worked out really well for me. But Steve Smith was brilliant with the bat tonight, absolutely brilliant! He keeps churning out runs when the going is tough for most other batters. The scoreboard pressure does go a long way in determining the outcome of the game, and we were talking 130-140, and we ended up getting much more than that! so that tells you just how clinical we were with our cricket tonight.
14.4 Sean Abbott to Chris Green, BOWLED HIM! AND THAT IS ALL OVER! SYDNEY SIXERS DEMOLISH SYDNEY THUNDER! Full on off, Chris Green tries to push it off the back foot to mid-off, the ball pitches and leg-cuts, to beat the outside edge and take the off-stump!
14.3 Sean Abbott to Usman Qadir, good length slower ball on off, pushed past point from the back foot, for a single to open the account.
Usman Qadir, LHB, is at the crease.
14.2 Sean Abbott to Gurinder Sandhu, round the wicket, OUT AGAIN! Short on off-and-middle, Sandhu tries to flat-bat it over mid-wicket by backing away, gets it top edged eventually and gets CAUGHT at mid-wicket easily!
14.1 Sean Abbott to Chris Green, over the wicket, POWER SURGE taken, short outside off, stroked down to silly point from the crease off the bottom edge, for a single.
14
overs
60/8score
4
1
1
W
1wd
0
0
runs
Gurinder Sandhu*
0(2)
Chris Green
3(5)
Ben Dwarshuis
2/14
13.6 Ben Dwarshuis to Gurinder Sandhu, good length ball on off-and-middle, tapped to backward point with the slight open bat face, for no run.