Sixers skipper Moises Henriques has defended the SCG floor after his facet was bundled out of the BBL finals on a substandard pitch for such an necessary closing that made life too robust for the batters.
The Sixers had been restricted to 9/116 from their 20 overs, with the Heat sneaking house with 10 balls to spare due to a masterful knock by Michael Neser, who was the one batter who seemed snug.
The high quality of the SCG pitch has been a problem for a lot of the season, with Renegades skipper Nic Maddinson launching a scathing assault after his facet misplaced a match earlier within the 12 months.
“It was pretty sh*t, to be honest,” he stated after that recreation.
“I thought it was one of the worst T20 wickets I’ve seen for a while, and it’s been a little bit like that all competition where we’ve had some pretty tricky wickets.”
Not rather a lot has improved since then with solely Steve Smith making it look simple with an outstanding century within the Sydney Smash, and the gremlins returned on Thursday with the Sixers managing simply seven boundaries of their innings.
It was a dream deck for the spinners, with Matthew Kuhnemann taking career-best figures of 3-17, and whereas it was a troublesome look ahead to the followers, Henriques had no difficulty with a pitch that he stated was good for the sport.
“It’s really good to play on these types of wickets. The best way to get well-rounded cricketers is to be challenged in different conditions,” he stated.
“You see at Adelaide Oval and some other grounds like at the Gabba that it’s an absolute bowler’s graveyard, so it’s nice to tip the scales into the bowlers’ favour for a change and see which batters can use their brains to figure out a tough situation.
“These wickets are maybe not too dissimilar to what you might face in India or something like that with how low and slow it was and possibly taking a little more spin.
“When you get these unique conditions, it sometimes makes for really fun cricket to play because it’s so different to what we’re used to.
“You do have to be flexible and be able to adapt to what we’ve got. I think it’d be boring if they just rolled out the same wicket every week wherever you went.
“Typically, in years gone by at the SCG in Shield cricket, it’s been a bit of a spinning wicket, so it’d be nice to get back to that heritage where when you go around Australia, you (get some variety).”
The loss ends the Sixers’ run of three-straight grand finals and ruins any hopes they’d of getting revenge on final 12 months’s loss to the Scorchers.
The Sixers might have prevented Thursday’s match had they received in Perth final week, however as a substitute they’ll have to look at the decider from house, with the Heat out to proceed their giant-killing streak.
“We had two cracks at making the final, and unfortunately we weren’t good enough to take either of them,” Henriques stated.
“It’s disappointing because I thought we had such a good year. I’m still really proud of what we were able to achieve throughout the season.”
Source: www.news.com.au
