Heat win thriller to place a book in the Final

After a horrendous start to their 2022-23 campaign, Heat have scripted an incredible comeback to seal a place in the grand finale of the competition. They piped out Sixers in the Challenger to fix a meeting with Scorchers on Saturday, February 4. In what was a low scoring thriller, Micheal Neser held his nerves to take his side home. Earlier in the day, he picked two crucial wickets with ball in hand. The Sixers batters had a disappointing outing as they could only manage to post 116 runs on the board batting first. Daniel Hughes top scored with a 24 ball 23. Matthew Kuhneman was the pick of the Heat Bowlers. He cashed in on a low SCG wicket and finished off with impressive match figures of 3/17. Kuhneman enjoyed good support from left arm pacer Spencer Johnson (3/28) at the other hand who helped Heat close out the first innings. 

Needing 117 for a place in the Final, Heat got off to the worst possible start. They lost Heazlett early courtesy a sharp piece of fielding from Ben Dwarshius. Josh Brown, who looked good for his 20, departed soon after. Izharlhuq Naveed brought the Sixers back in the game with his double strike. He first removed Mcsweeney and then Pierson to split the game wide open. Micheal Neser then joined the crease with Max Bryant and added 30 runs for the sixth wicket to shift the momentum before Sean Abott struck with the big wicket of Bryant. With the equation down to 31 runs from the last five overs, Heat had the slightest of  advantages. Neser, who was playing the anchor role up till then, took matters in his own hand and deposited Kerr for four consecutive boundaries to put the game to bed. He stayed right till the end and remained unbeaten at 48.  

Brief Scores: SIX 116 in 20 overs (Daniel Hughes 23; Matthew Kuhnemman 3-17, Spencer Johnson 3-28) lost to HEA 117/5 in 18.2 overs ( Micheal Neser 48; Izharlhuq Naveed 2-28) by 4 wickets.