After Mitchell Johnson’s heroics with the ball in Perth, the Brisbane Heat and Sydney Sixers will now line up for the right to fly across the country and play the final in the heat of Saturday afternoon in Perth. What motivation!
Compared to last night’s semi-finalists, the Heat and Sixers have hardly played each other at all, facing off just the minimum once a season. But despite this relative unfamiliarity, there’s a stunning skew of the head-to-head figures.
Here’s how both sides made the playoffs.
Brisbane Heat
The Heat started the season in style, posting 5/206 against Adelaide to win by ten runs, and followed that up in the Christmas-New Year period with two solid wins, chasing down targets set by the Sydney Thunder and Hobart Hurricanes, ending 2016 on top of the table.
Their first loss of the season came at home to the Sixers (remember this when you get to the head-to-heads below), and from there, they split the twin games against the Perth Scorchers.
They made short work of the Stars at the MCG to secure their fifth win, and followed that with one of the craziest losses and most insane finishes to a game in the history of the BBL, against the Renegades at home. I’m still trying to work out how on Earth they lost that game…
Sydney Sixers
The Sixers similarly started the season very well, thumping cross-town rivals the Thunder by nine wickets on opening night. But three nights later, they produced the first of many batting collapses this season, to lose heavily to Hobart.
This would become a pattern for the Sixers. They beat the Scorchers well at home just after Christmas, then fell in another hole against the Strikers in Adelaide on New Year’s Eve.
Needing to find form to secure a finals berth, the Sixers then won three of their last four games. They beat the Heat in Brisbane, the Melbourne Renegades well at home, but then lost the return leg of the Thunder, after crawling to 9/99, before beating the Melbourne Stars and edging ahead of the Renegades in the top four.
The biggest issue has been their batting collapses, however, which have come in some shape or form in more matches than they haven’t. Of the four semi-finalists, the Sixers’ leading players’ numbers are the lightest.
Who made ’em, and who took ’em
The leading players for both sides, by the numbers:
Key players
It has to be Brendon McCullum. And such is his strike power and the way he’s hit them in this tournament, even if the Sixers manage to get him by the tenth over and limit him to, say, 30 balls, he’ll still post 50 and the Heat will be away.
The Heat have fallen in behind McCullum beautifully, more so since losing Chris Lynn to national service, and if a couple of guys at the top can go with him, Brisbane will go big.
For the Sixers, it’s got to be Daniel Hughes. He’s their leading run-scorer by some margin, and the kind of form most of the top order is in means he has to take the responsibility for getting the runs himself.
Conversely, Brisbane know that if they can get Hughes early, it exposes plenty of blokes in less-than-brilliant form, who haven’t faced a lot of balls this tournament.
Head to head
Overall: played six – Heat one, Sixers five (I had no idea it was this one-sided).
At the Gabba: played four – Heat zero, Sixers four (I had to triple check this, too).
Last meeting: Game 15; January 3, at the Gabba – Heat 6/186 lost to Sixers 7/191.
Finals record
Yet to meet in a BBL finals match.
Tip – Brisbane Heat
I called a Perth-Brisbane final within minutes of the semi-finals being confirmed on Saturday night, and nothing has changed my mind.
The Heat have adapted to the loss of Lynn way better than expected, and as the numbers above show, their contributions are more even shared than is the case for the Sixers. Like the Scorchers, the Heat have a dynamic side that can do more damage, whereas the Sixers have been very hot and cold, and need several to play their best game of the season to topple the hosts.
Despite their surprisingly good record both over the Heat and at the Gabba, I just can’t see the Sixers doing it.
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