BBL 13 | Twitter erupts as Thunder collapse out of BBL enabling Sydney Sixers' progressing

Opting to field first worked well for the Sydney Thunders as they successfully managed to dismiss Steve Smith in the first ball of the match. Opening the innings alongside James Vince, the Aussie Legend holed out to deep square leg off Daniel Sams’ bowling. Josh Phillipe attempted a recovery by smacking a few boundaries of the Sams over before the Sixers' innings went haywire. With Liam Hatcher and Chris Green’s superb blowing in the powerplay, the Sixers could manage a mere 27/1 on the board. Josh Phillipe and James Vince provided some thrust with a 59-run partnership off 50 deliveries until Toby Gray bowled the latter with a full length ball. The innings was later accelerated by Jordan Silk and Phillippe with a partnership of 33 runs to take the scoreboard to 97/3. A steady partnership in the second half between Sean Abott and Ben Dwarshuis proved to be key as the Sixers put up a modest total of 151/7.

The Thunders had a thunderous opening, the pair of Aussie icon David Warner and English veteran Alex Hales accumulated 44/0 in the powerplay. However, the Thunder's opening partnership was short-lived thereafter as Hales was dismissed right after the powerplay by Steve O'Keefe with a  good length delivery on off-stump. O’Keefe didn’t intend to stop there and continued to bamboozle the Thunder batters, picking up Cameron Bancroft with splendid wicket-to-wicket bowling. With Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Oliver Davies enduring quick dismissals, the Thunder chase looked shaky with the scorecard reading at 87/4 even as Warner anchored the innings and hit Todd Murphy and O’Keefe around the park. Nevertheless, like a house of cards, wickets kept falling for the Thunder Davies, Daniel Sams and skipper Chris Green not lasting long to leave the scorecard reading 96/6 in the 16th over. Warner tried to push through the batting collapse but succumbed to O’Keefe’s brilliant ball as Thunder’s hope sank even further. A tame run-out of Gray further added to the team’s misery and the side were eventually all out for 132, resulting in a 19 runs victory for the Sixers. It was the fifth win a row in the Sydney derby for the Sixers and one that guaranteed them a playoff spot in BBL 13.

Duck wasn't expected!

Legend! 😍

Yeah!

Lot of expectations came with that chopper!

That's awesome to watch!

That's nice from Davey!!

It's ok! Happens sometimes!

He wouldn't have expected this!

LOL! But that was some cool stuff!

He will not forget this day, he will come back stronger!