Adelaide Strikers Secure Final Spot with Dominant Victory over Sydney Thunder

The Adelaide Strikers have clinched the last remaining finals spot with a thumping nine-wicket win over the Sydney Thunder who are likely to finish up with the wooden spoon after another dreadful display in Canberra.

Melbourne Stars players would have been watching the game on Sunday night hoping that their fellow men in green could pull off a miracle, but it wasn’t to be as the Strikers chased down the paltry total of 140 with 23 balls to spare.

The result means they’ll finish fourth on 11 points, with the Strikers three clear of the Stars who could have snuck into the finals if Adelaide had lost and they’d beaten Hobart in their final game.

The Strikers won’t get to play at home during the finals but they have the artillery to upset the top teams, especially if skipper Matt Short continues to pile on the runs.

The star opener is the runaway leading run-scorer this season – more than 200 clear of the next best – and was given a life on the first ball of the chase when David Warner put down what would have been a screamer.

D’Arcy Short better buy a couple of Powerball tickets after riding his luck in a crazy couple of minutes during Adelaide’s run chase.

The opener appeared to be caught behind in the third over when there was a huge noise as the ball passed the bat, but replays showed it had clipped the stumps instead with the bails once again staying on.

The bails did light up a few balls later off Tanveer Sangha’s bowling, but this time it was Matt Gilkes’ gloves that dislodged the bail. ‘Maybe our eyes are going,’ Mark Waugh joked. ‘How on earth,’ Isa Guha said. ‘That must be travelling.’ ‘How heavy are those bails?’ Waugh added.

He narrowly missed out on claiming the 11th hat-trick in BBL history, but Lloyd Pope won’t care after the spinner returned to form with a blistering burst to claim career-best figures of 4-22.

Having claimed three wickets in his first three games of the season, Pope matched that in the space of four deliveries as he knocked over Chris Green, Nathan McAndrew and Liam Hatcher in the penultimate over. Jamie Overton continued his brilliant season with 3-26 as the Thunder were bowled out in the 20th over when Tanveer Sangha was run out without facing a ball.

They’ve been a mainstay of the finals for the past few seasons, but the Thunder head into their last game needing to beat the Renegades just to have a chance of avoiding the wooden spoon.

It’s been a horror campaign for the men in lime green who have won just one match and suffered enough batting collapses to last a lifetime.

They were flying at 1-69 heading into the drinks break but lost 3-6 after Cam Bancroft ran himself out, before Alex Hales and Ollie Davies threw their wickets away.

Seven members of their top eight cracked double digits but Hales (43 off 32) was the only one to pass 20 in an innings that perfectly summed up their tournament.