Brisbane Heat captain Jimmy Peirson admits he thought his side was in the “box seat” when Scorchers captain Ashton Turner was run out, before the BBL final slipped through their grasp.
After setting Perth an imposing 176 for victory, the Heat were on the front foot and had the Scorchers reeling at 3-54 to silence the 53,000-strong WA crowd.
While Turner and Josh Inglis attempted a rescue mission for the home side, as they needed 96 off just 50 balls, Peirson thought the visitors had the title in sight when first Inglis and then Turner fell in the space of three balls.
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“When we had the run out of Ash Turner, we thought we were in the box seat to win that game,” Peirson said after the five-wicket loss.
“It’s disappointment.
“To be honest, they had a couple of young players come out and do something special in Cooper Connolly and Nick Hobson.
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“The courage they played with took the game out of our hands.
“We were right in control until they hit a few boundaries in quick succession.
“The game was right there.”
Peirson was animated through the horror mixup that saw man of the match Turner run out for 53 off just 34 balls, as Nick Hobson first appeared to be the player to walk.
But the Heat captain quickly gestured to Turner as the umpires confirmed it was the Perth captain who had to go in a moment described by commentators as “a massive disaster”.
“There’s the game,” Fox Cricket’s Adam Gilchrist called live.
“When he was there, they were a chance.”
“That’s huge. Two absolutely monster wickets in one over,” commentator Mark Waugh added.
But from that point, 19-year-old Cooper Connolly – who had batted just once in the BBL tournament – and every day accountant Nick Hobson stepped up on the biggest stage to see Perth home with three balls to spare.
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It helped Perth’s cause that the Heat had to bring an extra man up for the final over, after Brisbane were penalised for failing to complete their innings with the ball in time.
“Extraordinary scenes, extraordinary circumstances,” Gilchrist said.
“It felt like we had enough runs if we took all of our chances, which we didn’t do,” Peirson lamented.
“If we’d taken the chances, we could have won that game.”
Peirson refused to put blame on teammate Josh Brown who got himself in a “terrible position” and dropped Connolly on 19 with Perth still needing 19 off 11 balls.
“It’s a steep learning curve; especially the Big Bash, the big stage, it doesn’t get much bigger,” he said.
“He’ll be OK. Everyone drops catches; I’ve dropped plenty and it won’t be the last one he drops either.
“He’s a pretty calm dude, he’ll be hurting a little bit but no doubt he’ll get over it.”
Peirson said he remained “immensely proud” of the Heat’s efforts to go from last place to finalists in the space of just 21 days.
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“The group we’ve got isn’t full of household names, like other teams,” he said.
“We have the right personnel; throw our Test guys into the mix and overseas players we had. We are building towards something. This season has given us tremendous confidence in what we can do.
“We’ll go home, lick our wounds. We’ll come back bigger and better next year.”
The Heat skipper said he planned to adopt a similar template to Perth and maintain their State players as a core squad.
“We look at our squad now and they are mostly Queensland state representatives,” he said.
“The beauty of that is you’re training together all year around and you’re having those conversations.
“Rather than six/seven from interstate and the overseas guys.”
