TOPIC:

I was wondering why both Agar & Morris were not selected yesterday, interestingly even with Agar out they dropped Hatzoglou as well leaving only Turner (and Connolly who was not used) to bowl some overs of spin, luckily Hardie stepped up to bowl the 19th over and went for only 7 after Tye was taken to the absolute cleaners by Finch & co for 32 off the 18th over, there was some deadset pies dished up in that over!
With Agar & Morris both departing for India soon Im not sure you can pick all of Behrendorff, Payne, Kelly & Tye in the same side going forward, Hatzoglou should play for some variety whilst Connolly boosts the batting order at 7 with another spin bowling option as well. The one I would drop out of those 4 pace bowlers is probably controversially Tye, although the old saying shit gets wickets seems to apply there 24 times in this bbl alone somehow!

I'm surprised they didn't give Connelly an over or two, surely his bowling is no worse than Turner, and as you say he adds some depth in batting, maybe he bats at 6, leave out Hobson and yes, we need a spinner - I don't think Hatzaglou is the option long term, but he may be what we need for the finals.
 

BH, very seldom does Tye miss out on getting a wicket in his first over.
Isn't he leading wicket taker for the competition. Surely one over does not lead to being dropped.

He is AM and as I pointed out above shit gets wickets and it would be controversial.
He also goes for more runs than almost anyone too including 63 last night!

Really good news coming from the BBL XII season. After a couple of horrible COVID 19 seasons.
Tv ratings on 7 and Foxtel are up 25%
850,000 fans have attended matches this BBL.
100,000 fans attended matches this weekend.

Steve Smith was supposed to go to an Indian training camp on Sunday.But has been given permission by CA to play out the Big Bash.
Next Saturday night could be a far bigger than the 32,000 at Sunday's game.

Beasley Hutton wrote:

He is AM and as I pointed out above shit gets wickets and it would be controversial.
He also goes for more runs than almost anyone too including 63 last night!
According to Kayo(Fox), He is the second highest wicket taker ever in the BB, at 7.42 , or close, per wicket.
This year, second on wicket taker scale, only over taken tonight by Abbott.
Second with 8. 4 per wicket.
Very harsh.

Massive challenge ahead for the Scorchers on Saturday night. Even though the Sixers are a team packed with very good players, I would be confident that the Scorchers would have them covered in Perth apart from one man, Steven Smith. How on earth do you get this guy out? He is peeling off runs with a 150 + strike rate and if the Scorchers want to win this game they will need to get rid of him within his first 20 balls to minimise the damage.

I'm sure Voges will be looking at footage of how Smith has scored to get some clues as to how to school the bowlers. Back of a length rather than full may be the way to go given that the square boundaries are bigger than the straight ones at Optus but to be honest no ground is big enough to contain him at the moment.

If the Scorchers can ride the storm and lock in the final at Optus, they won't have to contend with Smith next time as he will be in India. If they lose this Saturday, it becomes more problematic as they would have to go to the SCG to defend their title.

42,000 tickets sold at 11am AWST.
Anticipation is for around 55,000 fans for Perth vs 6 ers.

I'm going which is a first for me and even the missus is coming which is really saying something as she's not a cricket fan. Fingers crossed the Scorchers do the business.

It will all come down to whether the scorchers can control Smiths influence on the game. The only way they can do this is to get him out in the Powerplay. Berendorff, Payne and Morris have to be right on their game from the start. If Smith bats for more than 30 balls it will be very tough to keep the Sixers to a manageable score and they also have an excellent bowling attack led by Abbott, Dwarscisus and O'keeffe.