The Scorchers clinched their sixth BBL title with a dominant six-wicket win on Sunday, chasing down a modest target of 132 with 15 balls to spare in front of 55,018 spectators at Optus Stadium. However, the Sixers went into the final on the back of a physically demanding travel schedule, flying to Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and back to Perth within eight days.
The Sixers’ finals campaign proved particularly taxing. They lost qualifying to the Scorchers in Perth on Tuesday, beat the Hobart Hurricanes in the Challenger in Sydney on Friday evening and then flew back to Perth on Saturday afternoon for Sunday’s grand final. The workload was such that Sixers captain Moises Henriques opted to skip a planned joint press conference with Scorchers skipper Ashton Turner on Saturday.
The fatigue was clearly noticeable on the field. The Sixers were bowled out for 132 before the Scorchers rocketed to 80 within nine overs without loss.
“It wasn’t ideal. Some of the planning wasn’t what we were looking for. You don’t get a chance to train the day before the match, which I didn’t think many other sports allow that to happen at this elite level. We’ll get some feedback back to head office. I think we were the only team to give feedback to Cricket Australia [earlier this season]. So I don’t know if other teams are lazy in that regard or if we thought we were going to play finals, so we were worried about things like that,” Shipperd said of the match after the game.
Shipperd suggested playing the final on Monday, as Australia Day was a public holiday, could have eased the burden.
“If it had been a public holiday, we could have played on Monday and given our team a break to freshen up before starting the match. But that is not an important excuse for us in the context of the season,” he said.
The Sixers coach also questioned the decision to continue playing in heavy rain in pursuit of the Scorchers.
“We thought there was a chance to get out. The referees, I think, maybe set a benchmark in Hobart [in the knockout match on Wednesday] where they played through blinding rain. They probably played the same card tonight, when maybe there was an opportunity to come off and just reset, let the ground settle in terms of the wetness of the ball,” Shipperd said.
Former Australia captain Steven Smith spoke on television and echoed the same concerns.
“There’s no way we should be playing cricket in this. I’ve never played when it was raining so hard. It’s raining,” Smith said on TV.
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