AN incredible four wickets for just one run from Sydney Sixers strike bowler Sarah Aley put her team into their third straight WBBL final with a 18-run win over Adelaide.
The Sixers showed no sign of weariness from the extra travel to the Adelaide Oval as an incredible three-over stint where they took 6/3 nailed the Strikers to the wall.
The hosts were at 6/23 at the end of the powerplay making it an almost impossible task of reaching the 139 set by the Sixers.
The collapse started in just the fourth over, when player of the match Aley took the first of three consecutive two-wicket overs, Kim Garth removing the key wicket of Sophie Devine and Bridget Patterson in the middle of them.
The wicket of Strikers captain Suzie Bates (14) started their horror run of wickets when she was caught off Aley on the first ball of the fourth. Four batters went for ducks in the next three overs and the Strikers’ dream of a maiden final was suddenly very feint.
Aley said it was about her plan coming together.
“For me really I was just trying to attack the stumps. That’s my game and has been my game for quite some time,” she said.
“Over the past three season it’s what I’ve done really well and what I wanted to execute today.
“They came out really well. There was one wicket that was terrible, but I’ll take it, but for me it was making sure I take the stumps and giving myself every chance to hit them”
The Sixers’ performance with the ball overshadowed Ashleigh Gardner’s effort in the first innings when she salvaged a slow start to lift them to a reasonable score of 138.
Gardner came to the crease after Alyssa Healy was dismissed for just two and quickly went to work. She found the boundary with ease, scoring six sixes and five fours for a massive 72 off 45 balls.
Captain Ellyse Perry (16) may scored slowly but she turned over the strike as much as possible for Gardner and contributed 15 to an 87-run partnership.
“(I’m) incredibly proud of the girls, I thought that was an unbelievable effort in the first six there for Kim and Sarah to take that many wickets and really just shut the Strikers out at the start,” Perry said after the game.
“It’s wonderful, a great result. I’m really proud of the girls, they’ve played well all season and it’s nice to have another chance in the final against Perth.”
Adelaide’s English import Tammy Beaumont put on a half-century and valiant seventh-wicket stand of 48 with Megan Schutt that encouraged her team to fight to the end, but too much damage had been done.
The final will be played on Sunday before the men’s final in a replay of last year’s decider. The two sides are the in-form teams of the competition, boasting the leading run scorers in Elyse Villani and Ellyse Perry, and the top wicket takers in Katherine Brunt and Sarah Aley.
