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It’s the first Big Bash League 2013-14 semi-final which sees the Melbourne Stars take on the Hobart Hurricanes at the MCG in Melbourne on Tuesday and you can follow the scores live from 7.40 pm AEDT.
The Stars became the first team in the three-year long history of the BBL to make it to the last-four stage of the competition with eight wins from eight games.
Suffice to say then, they will start favourites against a side which entered the semi-final by the skin of their teeth, with the Hurricanes managing only three victories and yet going through.
Of course, the two sides start on a clean slate, with the Stars deriving no more advantage from having finished atop than some confidence from having not lost a game in the competition yet.
One thing that will obviously spur on the Stars is the Hurricanes’ Tim Paine’s allegation against their team on how they seem to have different salary cap than all other teams.
A fired up Eddie McGuire, the Stars’ president, then retaliated with a thinly-veiled legal threat against Paine followed by words to the effect of the players looking to spew venom on the pitch in return.
The matter was quickly resolved with Paine apologising for his comments and the Stars accepting it but it sure has set the context for this game.
Both teams will be bolstered by returns of some of their key personnel.
Cameron White comes back to lead the Stars following his time out with the Australian T20I side, and his performances over the three games would have been enough to win him a man-of-the-series award had there been one.
Also joining the Stars will be Glenn Maxwell, Matthew Wade, Luke Wright and in a major coup, Lasith Malinga. Malinga had been called back by the Sri Lankan board but the Stars have managed to convince them to release him for just this game.
And then there’s James Muirhead who turned out to be the biggest surprise for Australia in the three-match T20I series. He had spin, he extracted bounce and he got the two to go along with excellent lines and lengths.
The Hurricanes will welcome back George Bailey who has played in only one BBL game this season but joins the squad with a run of good form in this format.
There were unbeaten knocks of 49 and 60 against England that helped the Aussies crush the opposition bowling over the last two games and he will surely look to continue that same form going into this vital encounter.
With Ben Dunk winning the player-of-the-tournament award already, and Travis Birt chipping in with vital hands throughout the tournament, their batting suddenly looks much better settled.
Shoaib Malik and Dimitri Mascarenhas add usefulness to the middle-order with their ability to do both, bat and bowl, while the bowling looks like it’s one to watch out given the presence of Ben Hilfenhaus, Doug Bollinger and Xavier Doherty.
In their only previous match this season, while the Stars did win it in the end, the Hurricanes managed to push the table-toppers real close.
After restricting Hobart to 131, the Stars needed 19.1 overs to chase down the target, thanks mainly to Wright’s rollicking 36-ball 52. The rest of the Stars batsmen scored 71 in 13.1 overs.
Join us for the Stars v Hurricanes semi-final in the Big Bash League 2013-14 on Tuesday and you can follow the live score of this game from 7.40 pm AEDT and post your comments below.
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