Costly batting lapses hurt Perth Scorchers
The good was very good from the Scorchers but a couple of bad days with the bat came back to haunt them
Andrew McGlashan28-Jan-2020Season in nutshellBetter than last year when they had the shock of finishing with the wooden spoon but still some way short of the powerhouse side that dominated for many seasons. The schedule was very tough for them without back-to-back home games until the end of the regular season which led to a lot of long return journeys to the east coast. They managed a mid-season run of three consecutive wins which put things on track for a finals place, but two awful batting performances against the Stars were costly although the rain did them no favours in the final game against the Sydney ThunderWhat went right? The good was very good. The opening partnership between Josh Inglis and Liam Livingstone was dynamic and the most prolific pairing of the season with 554 runs. Inglis was likened to Brendon McCullum (with even the man himself seeing the similarities) while Livingstone showed tremendous power. Fawad Ahmed and Jhye Richardson, who each took 15 wickets along with Chris Jordan, were also impressive while Jordan’s stunning catch to remove Dan Christian provided one of the highlights of the tournament.
What went wrong? There was too much of a gap between the leading performers and the rest with bat and ball. Mitchell Marsh supported the openers well, but while Cameron Bancroft made nearly 300 runs he sometimes struggled for tempo in the middle order and Ashton Turner had a season to forget with 86 runs in seven innings. The bowling depth was always going to be tested without Jason Behrendorff (long-term back injury) and AJ Tye (elbow) which meant it was a bad time for Matt Kelly (eight wickets, economy 9.38) to struggle to match his 2018-19 performancesPerformance of the seasonMarsh’s 93 off 41 balls against the Brisbane Heat was as clean a display of ball-striking as you could see – and that does some doing behind Livingstone and Inglis. It was important for Marsh to have a good BBL after missing the first part of the season after breaking his hand and this was a show of the power that will keep him in international contention.
Player of the seasonTough to split Livingstone and Inglis, but coming in as an overseas player brings additional expectation to perform and Livingstone lived up to it. Perhaps, occasionally, he went for one big shot too many and his timing eluded him at a vital moment on a tricky pitch against the Thunder but this was an eye-catching season and could put him back in the England frame.Key Stat (Gaurav Sundararaman) From a statistical point of view the Scorchers did not do too badly. Three bowlers took 15 wickets and three batsmen are present in the top 15 run-scorers. The Scorchers lost their finals spot due to their inability to close out matches which they should have won. Against the Strikers they were 0 for 124 in 8.3 overs chasing 198 and against the Stars they lost chasing a paltry 141. They will reflect on these two losses as one of the main reasons they were squeezed out of the finals.