{"id":337910,"date":"2025-12-09T20:48:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/337910\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T20:48:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:48:24","slug":"scorchers-take-aim-at-sixers-ahead-of-wbbl-semifinal-after-eliminating-stars-in-knockout-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/337910\/","title":{"rendered":"Scorchers take aim at Sixers ahead of WBBL semifinal after eliminating Stars in knockout final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perth opener Katie Mack has had a cheeky dig at the Sydney Sixers’ home form ahead of the clash that will decide who plays Hobart for the WBBL title.<\/p>\n

The Scorchers will fly to Sydney after beating Melbourne by 28 runs in Tuesday night’s knockout final.<\/p>\n

They will now meet the Sixers at North Sydney on Thursday night and the winner will then head to Hobart to take on the Hurricanes in Saturday’s title decider.<\/p>\n

“I’m not sure about their record at North Sydney \u2014 I heard something about that,” Mack told Fox Sports after the win over the Stars.<\/p>\n

Sydney secured a home final on Sunday in the last game of the regular season, beating Adelaide by one run at North Sydney.<\/p>\n

While they beat the Thunder at the same venue, it was also the scene of the Sixers’ disastrous November 20 loss to the Melbourne Stars.<\/p>\n

After Meg Lanning put on a clinic and scored 135 in 4-219 \u2014 the highest individual and team scores of the season \u2014 the Sixers were blasted out for 42.<\/p>\n

The Sixers also lost to the Hurricanes this season at North Sydney.<\/p>\n

But Sydney went on a tear after the Stars loss, winning four out of five completed games to finish second on the ladder.<\/p>\n

The Scorchers have been even more impressive, winning five of their last six.<\/p>\n

It was a far cry from their opening match, when the Sixers mauled Perth by 10 wickets at the WACA ground.<\/p>\n

“It was a key thing for me to try and make the final the first year I was here \u2014 I guess validate the reason they picked me up,” said Mack, who joined Perth this season from the Adelaide Strikers.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

“Our first game obviously was a bit miserable. To build throughout the comp and come into the finals probably playing our best cricket, it’s really exciting.”<\/p>\n

Mack top-scored with 52 and put on a 107- run opening stand with Beth Mooney (45) as the Scorchers reached 5-173.<\/p>\n

The Stars took it up to Perth in their run chase, but once Lanning was dismissed for 49 their chances were shot and they finished on 9-145.<\/p>\n

“It was a bit up and down. There were probably some times when I thought they were going to run away with it, but that’s always a run chase in a high-pressure situation \u2014 a couple of wickets, things can change very, very quickly,” Mack said.<\/p>\n

“We kept them at that eight, nine [runs] an over the whole time, so as they lost wickets it got out of their hands.”<\/p>\n

One of the highlights of the match was the duel between Lanning and 20-year-old Scorchers opening bowler Chloe Ainsworth.<\/p>\n

After dropping a straightforward chance from Lanning, Ainsworth made up for it in the next over when she had the Stars great caught behind by Mooney, the player of the match.<\/p>\n

“She [Ainsworth] was great and her ability to bring the ball in at the moment is a really good match-up for Meg \u2014 obviously she’s so strong through that gully region,” Mack said.<\/p>\n

“Chloe is a gun, especially for her age.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perth opener Katie Mack has had a cheeky dig at the Sydney Sixers’ home form ahead of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,188018,740,39938,117279,60180,85,29879],"class_list":{"0":"post-337910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-chloe-ainsworth","11":"tag-cricket","12":"tag-meg-lanning","13":"tag-melbourne-stars","14":"tag-perth-scorchers","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-wbbl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}