Ashes hero Mitchell Starc<\/a> will make his first appearance for the Sixers in 11 years, setting up an enticing new-ball battle with Warner.<\/p>\nSmith said Starc was \u201cbowling like an absolute wizard at the moment\u201d and was looking forward to his cameo two-game stint in the BBL.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s such a workhorse,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got such resilience in his body. He knows his body inside out. He was just incredible throughout the summer \u2026 hopefully he can put on a similar show here for the Sixers in the next couple of games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warner, Smith and Starc (35) are all entering the twilight of illustrious careers, and Smith\u2019s philosophy is to \u201ctake it day by day\u201d. But he also believes players should be judged on performances, not their birth certificates.<\/p>\n
\u201cAge is just a number,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can still do your job and you\u2019re the best at it, everything else is irrelevant, in my opinion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can only help you, experience in big games. And I think that showed out during the Ashes series.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had an experienced squad, and experienced players know how to win big moments, and I think we did that better than England.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Thunder, who sit last on the points table after two wins from nine games, will be playing for pride against their cross-town rivals, but there is much more at stake for the Sixers.<\/p>\n
After four wins and a no-result from their first eight games, the Sixers sit a point outside the top four.<\/p>\n
But if they can win against the Thunder and Brisbane Heat on Sunday, and two other results fall in their favour, the Sixers could qualify for the finals in top spot, securing home-ground advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if the results go our way, we can still finish first,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what someone inside was saying before. We\u2019ll just concentrate on what we can do now.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully win our next two and it will take care of itself \u2026 it\u2019s good for the comp if it\u2019s close towards the back end. Every game is important. If we win our next two, it\u2019s irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, amid reports that the annual pink-ball Test could be dumped for the next Ashes series in Australia, Smith clearly approved of that prospect, although he admitted he might not be involved.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a big fan of the pink ball,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t see the thing very well, so more than happy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be around for that. For those that like the pink ball, it\u2019s a bit of a shame I suppose, but I don\u2019t think you need it in an Ashes series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you saw the crowds we got for the series out here for all the red-ball games. I think we pretty much broke records for every game. So I don\u2019t think we need it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warner is in some doubt for Friday night, having missed Monday\u2019s loss to Melbourne Renegades with a knee…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-415649","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-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415649","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=415649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}