Steve Smith scored his second T20 tonne in his 50th BBL match to take the Sydney Sixers to the top of the points table with a comfortable win with 203 points.
After getting used to batting, Smith got lucky early in the inning when a delivery from Harry Conway hit the stumps after hitting the pads, but the bail was not removed. Smith sucked the next ball over his line short his cover and scored a six. He accelerated, pulling Wes Agar for 4 and 6 off consecutive balls, sucking Matthew Short across midwicket for another 6 before hooking Harry Thornton for a 6 for the fourth in the first six overs. , the Sixers scored 55. Smith was the only one in those runs where he controlled 39, but that wasn’t the only one. Smith scored a 30-ball 50 by cutting Colin de Greandhomme into the boundary and playing long with Conway to pick up back-to-back boundaries while the momentum held. After Josh Phillippe went down in the first over, he was joined by Curtis Patterson. With Patterson, he added his 149 to his second wicket, and Patterson played his second fiddle ideally with his 43. Conway continued with penalties in the middle over, and Smith got a full ball for 6 and 4. A few more Sixes helped him through his 1990s, racking up his first BBL clay in just his 15th over of an innings, becoming the first Sixers player to do so. Shortly after, the Sixers received a double hit as Patterson and Smith fell off the ball back-to-back, sending Enriquez out. However, just as they began to slide, helpful cameos from Jordan Silk and Dan Christian emerged to propel them past the 200-run mark in the final.
In response, the Adelaide Strikers were bolstered by an aggressive start from Matthew Short, but Travis Head fell early. Going 6-4-4, it gave the Strikers a decent start. However, he soon fell while trying to hit Todd Murphy, falling to 24-ball 40. Murphy, the latest off-spinner to join the test team from Australia, also caught Adam Horse on a reverse sweep in the next over and Colin de Granddome again retired after tripping the Strikers in the same race.
Alex Carry lifted her with her 35-ball 54 before being tortured by Ben Her Dwarf, which also meant the end of the Strikers’ challenge. They lost their last five wickets for just 23 runs and fell short of a finish by 59 runs.
Brief Scores: Sydney Sixers 203/5 (Steve Smith 101, Kurtis Patterson 43) beat Adelaide Strikers 144 all out (Alex Carey 54, Matthew Short 40; Ben Dwarshius 3-28 Todd Murphy 3-35) by 59 runs