Perth Scorchers thrash Sydney SixersImage Credit source: Getty Images
The presence of the two biggest stars of the Australian cricket team and a big star of international cricket could not take the Sydney Sixers to the finals. In the first qualifier of Big Bash League-15, Sydney had to face a crushing defeat at the hands of Perth Scorchers. Perth, which has won the BBL title the most number of times, 5 times, defeated Sydney for just 99 runs and won the match by a huge margin of 50 runs and moved towards its sixth title. Now Sydney will have to try to get a ticket for the final in the next match.
Perth’s young stars scored
The first qualifier match of the tournament was played at Optus Stadium in Perth on Tuesday 20 January. In this match, the winning team was to get direct entry into the finals, while the losing team would get one more chance to reach the finals. But sixers Lost the chance to reach the finals directly. However, its bowlers gave a strong performance from their side and restricted Perth to just 149 runs. Mitchell Starc and Ben Dwarshuis prevented Perth from scoring big. For that, Finn Allen played an inning of 49 runs in just 30 balls.
After this, eyes were once again on the opening pair of Babar Azam and Steve Smith. While Babar was continuously flopping, Smith was scoring a lot of runs from his bat. The story did not change in this match also. Babar Azam was out after playing only 2 balls in the first over and could not even open the account. Smith (37) was definitely seen batting fast again but wickets kept falling from the other side. Young spinner Cooper Connolly (2) and 20-year-old fast bowler Mahali Beardman (3) destroyed the Sixers full of experienced batsmen and bundled them out for just 99 runs.
Sydney has one chance left
Despite this defeat, Sydney Sixers have one more chance to reach the finals. Due to this defeat, he will now have to play a challenger match. Which team he will face in this match will be decided in the knockout match to be played between Hobart Hurricanes and Melbourne Stars on 21 January. Whichever team wins this match, it will make it to the Challenger match and there it will compete with the Sixers. The Challenger match will be played in Sydney on 23 January.