Almanac Cricket: Fifty-five days to be King – the BBL 11 Grand Final in technicolor (by John Gordon)

 

 

The Scorchers remove their shoes and form a circle to show gratitude for being able to tread upon the land of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri – their home away from home for BBL 11  [Source: Author]

 

The Boxer Rebellion in Beijing in 1900 involved a fight between the Chinese and the Europeans and Americans who occupied part of the city. The foreigners, led I think by Charlton Heston and David Niven, defended their patch and the battle ran for some 55 days. The story was told in a forgettable movie filmed in vivid technicolor called 55 Days at Peking.

 

Two things called the movie to mind this week. One, foreigners once again returned to Beijing,  this time for winter sports. The other was that the Perth Scorchers had played their first game of the Big Bash competition at Optus Stadium on December 8 2021 and then spent about the same amount of time on the road as the duration of the Boxer rebellion, playing the rest of the tournament – 15 games – around the other states of covid-ravaged Australia . Last Friday they played in the final and won.

 

In these plague-infested times, having the ability to perform at your best when away from your home for weeks on end has become a newly required and still rare skill in professional sport. Richmond pioneered it in the AFL in 2020. To win BBL 11 the Scorchers would need to replicate that feat along with the isolation, covid protocols and covid infections.

 

When I was setting out for the stadium to see the final there was devastation all around. It had been a hot and humid day. A storm cell with a downward blast – a power surge if you will – tore through my town dumping about 25 mills of rain in 20 minutes and uprooting and smashing trees. Had this match been scheduled for anywhere else in Melbourne than the roofed marvel it would never have started. Perhaps the faceless men at the Scorchers had this in mind when they nominated the docklands as their home away from home. Then again, had the game been rained out, the Scorchers would have been awarded the trophy for finishing on top of the ladder. But that would have been an unsatisfying achievement. Because there was one other thing on the Perth bucket list – beating the Sydney Sixers in the  final to win the cup.

 

It is actually stunning that in just 11 short seasons such a fierce rivalry has emerged between these two teams. Sydney won BBL 1 beating the Scorchers in Perth. Perth won BBL 4 beating the Sixers in Canberra, and BBL 6 winning over the Sydney team at the WACA. Last year the Sixers beat Perth twice in the finals to win it. Before last Friday they had three titles each.

 

Scorchers captain Ashton Turner was on record early in this season talking about the two final losses to Sydney last year and how much it had hurt, and yet had provided a motivation to emulate the way they played and, if possible, challenge them again in this competition, hopefully with a different outcome.

 

Nobody could have easily predicted the course that this season’s domestic Twenty 20 competition would take as the Omicron variant of the covid virus gripped the continent. Every team suffered the impacts of losing players with the virus and replacements were drafted in from local competitions. Before the Stars v Scorchers game, Stars captain Glen Maxwell handed out several new caps to players he had never met before. Ironically it was a player from Melbourne grade cricket – Peter Hatzoglou – now playing for the Scorchers, who took Maxwell’s wicket. Then Maxwell himself got the virus before playing one of the greatest T20 innings ever, smashing 154 off 64 against Hobart at the MCG.

 

Games were delayed and rescheduled. A pool of top-up players was created so teams could call on last minute replacements. Teams tried to live in bubbles to avoid the risk of transmission. Sydney lost one of its highest run scorers – Josh Philippe – to covid before the final.

 

But with WA’s strict border rules, no team was more profoundly impacted than Perth. When they left on December 8 they weren’t sure when they would be back. Christmas would be wherever they were on 25 December, but certainly not with extended families in Perth. Picking up top-up players from Perth was hard because they would face a 14 day quarantine to return. And because they were in the midst of the pandemic in the east, they were not immune from the virus and six players, including Cam Bancroft, Matt Kelly and Lance Morris, contracted covid and missed games. Chris Sabburg, a player who had last played for the Brisbane Heat in 2014 and who was now playing grade cricket in Perth, was drafted in, flown over and played a few games for the team.

 

In Adelaide on 14 January, things hit rock bottom. Scorcher’s wicket-keeper Josh Inglis was on duty (with Mitch Marsh and Jhye Richardson) with the Australian Test squad. Second keeper Cam Bancroft contracted covid on the morning of the game. Then whilst batting, third keeper – English import Laurie Evans – had his toe broken by a Harry Conway yorker. Chris Sabburg, who hadn’t kept wicket since playing junior indoor cricket,  wore the gloves when the team took the field. A player-pool wicketkeeper who wasn’t even at the ground – Brayden Stepien (who had played two games for the Renegades in 2020)   – was phoned up, rushed to the ground, handed a shirt and the gloves, kept for the last 14 overs  and won a permanent spot in future cricket trivia night questions. Perth lost the game, and, unfortunately, because Stepien hadn’t been named before the game, was penalised the Bash Boost point it had earned for having the higher score after 10 overs!

 

Fortunately, Inglis, Richardson and Marsh were released from Australian duties to resume with the team before the qualifying final, although Marsh twinged his suspect hamstring during his innings and was in some doubt for the final.

 

Sydney Sixers, having been comprehensively beaten (189 to 140)  by Perth in the qualifying final at Marvel under an open roof on a bright and warm Melbourne twilight, won the right on the following Wednesday night, to defend their premiership and to pursue a three-peat of titles after winning a stunning play-off victory against the surging Adelaide Strikers on the last ball. But they literally were limping into the final. Having lost Philippe and the two Edwards boys to covid, four players – Hughes, Henriques, Silk and O’Keefe – suffered soft tissue injuries. Silk, with a torn hamstring, having been retired out so a fit player could run on the last ball against Adelaide, was unavailable. The other three played in the final.

 

Then the Sixers sought to have Steve Smith come in as a replacement player. But, not holding a current Sixers contract, and not being on the top up list, Cricket Australia refused the request. This was disappointing. It might have evened up the contest and the more star-power, surely the better for the game; Ava Gardner to Heston and Niven. Ultimately it probably didn’t matter, but should have been handled better.

 

All of this led Sixers veteran Dan Christian to tweet asking if anyone in Melbourne wanted a game of cricket on the Friday; “warm up starts 6.30” He promised free beer, “potentially out of a  large cup”. Pointedly, he concluded “(*no test cricketers)”.

 

So, the Scorchers having paid a low-key tribute with a barefoot circle to the privilege of treading on the land of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri, the fireworks went off and the flames flamed and Josh Inglis and Kurtis Patterson ran out to open. In the qualifying final less than a week before at the same ground, the Scorchers scored 189 of which the first four batters – Inglis, Kurtis Patterson, Mitch Marsh and Colin Munro had contributed 183 (the rest were extras). By the end of six overs, all four of those batters were out, and the Scorchers had struggled to 4 for 25. The Sixer rebellion looked like it might have one final assault in it.

 

Scorchers coach Adam Voges was considering swapping out Laurie Evans and bringing in X factor reserve all-rounder Aaron Hardie at the tenth over if another wicket was lost. Indeed, Evans, still suffering with the broken toe, had been line ball to play in the final. Voges, whilst picking the side, had asked the Englishman the night before if he thought he should play. Evans’ response, Voges told Fox Sports after the game, was  “I have played in four T20 finals around the world and been man of the match in three of them”. Evans’ self-belief won him his spot, and Scorchers will be forever grateful; make that five for four!

 

Evans joined skipper Ashton Turner and turned the game with attacking cricket. Evans smashed 76 from 41 balls – including a couple of glorious sixes driven over cover, and Turner bashed 54 from 35. When Turner went out 10 overs after Munro, the Scorchers were 129 for 5 with 4 overs left. This wicket was not the road that the teams had played on last Saturday, it was more inconsistent. And, it has to be said, the lights at Marvel with the roof closed seemed nowhere as bright as the sunlight with the roof open or a cricket ground with light towers. One sensed – with the makeshift and wounded Sixers batting – that 150 might be enough. And at 4 for 25, no doubt the Scorchers would have taken that.

 

As it happened, Agar joined Evans and hit 3 fours in his 9 ball 15 and the Scorchers walked off with 171. Evans was exhausted and perspiring in the humid air and the injection in his broken toe had worn off. But it was an innings of class and confidence. Whilst fielding, on the Fox player microphone, Evans revealed he had been at home in England doing the last lawn mow before winter when his agent had called to say that Voges had been on the phone wanting him for the Big Bash. As he felt his days of international T20 had passed him by, he came out. But covid meant he could not bring his young family and Christmas and time apart from them had plainly been difficult. It was a credit to his strength of character that he had produced a match winning innings in the final.

 

The Sixers batted but never really got going. The Scorchers attack – Behrendorff, Richardson, Tye, Agar and Hatzoglou – is professional and well drilled. Runs are never easy and Sixers wickets were falling regularly. Even Ashton Turner came on for an over and snagged one. Then Kurtis Patterson threw himself forward to take a remarkable catch off a cracking Dan Christian shot at deep mid wicket, and one sensed that the rebellion was over at 62 for 4 in the tenth. Daniel Hughes fought on bravely with a sore ankle  for 42 off 33, but struggled to beat an Agar throw to Inglis and was run out. When Patterson took another catch on the boundary – an Abbott shot off Tye that nearly hit the roof, it was 77 for 7. Tye was on a hat trick after bouncing Dwarshuis next ball to have him caught behind and finished with 3 for 15 from his 3 overs to underline his class as a bowler in this format. Richardson knocked over Lyon and O’Keefe and the Sixers were out for 92, producing a record BBL final winning margin of 79 for the fourth Scorchers’ title. Colin Munro rushed to embrace Richardson, inflicting a bloody nose from a swinging shoulder. The “large cup” was handed to the Perth Scorchers.

 

Turner – an indomitable, measured and inspiring captain – paid tribute to the  Sixers standards and success, talked of the adversity that all the teams had faced and paid tribute to the strength and resilience of the Scorchers squad, support staff and families. Veteran Tye said it was up there with the best of their wins given the long time away from home. The players shared the moment on field with their partners and children who had joined them on the road, and the irrepressible Peter Hatzoglou posed for photos with his cricket club mates who had gathered in numbers on the fence.

 

The storm had passed when I emerged from the stadium and it was dark and cool.  The bright orange, magenta and green  technicolors  of the movie inside were gone. The rebellion had been suppressed. The credits had run. The show was over for another year.

 

 

 

 

The Sixer Rebellion is over, The smoke settles on the winners of BBL 11. Roll credits (photo; author)

 

 

 

Read more from John Gordon HERE

 

 

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Comments

  1. Daryl Schramm says

    I very much enjoyed the read John. I followed the BBL11 reasonably closely this year. Would have loved the Strikers to have got over SS in the game before the final. Perth did very well to get the score they did and were in big strife at 4/25. 170+ was always going to be too many on that deck with that attack. Let’s hope there is no rebellion/controversy in Peking in the next 14 days.

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