Sixers skipper Moises Henriques has defended the SCG surface after his side was bundled out of the BBL finals on a substandard pitch for such an important final that made life too tough for the batters.
The Sixers were restricted to 9/116 from their 20 overs, with the Heat sneaking home with 10 balls to spare thanks to a masterful knock by Michael Neser, who was the only batter who looked comfortable.
The quality of the SCG pitch has been an issue for much of the season, with Renegades skipper Nic Maddinson launching a scathing attack after his side lost a match earlier in the year.
“It was pretty sh*t, to be honest,” he said after that game.
“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 a lot has improved since then with only Steve Smith making it look easy with a superb century in the Sydney Smash, and the gremlins returned on Thursday with the Sixers managing just seven boundaries in their innings.
It was a dream deck for the spinners, with Matthew Kuhnemann taking career-best figures of 3-17, and while it was a tough watch for the fans, Henriques had no issue with a pitch that he said was good for the game.
“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 said.
“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 had of getting revenge on last year’s loss to the Scorchers.
The Sixers could have avoided Thursday’s match had they won in Perth last week, but instead they’ll have to watch the decider from home, with the Heat out to continue 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 said.
“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.”
