Scorchers denied AGAIN in deja vu act<\/a><\/p>\nAustralian great Mark Waugh agreed the schedule was too tight to ask for teams in the BBL finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think Cricket Australia might need to look at the program \u2013 I don\u2019t think one day is enough between the Friday and the Sunday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day is a tough ask if you\u2019re travelling from one side of the country to the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Captain Moises Henriques said the loss \u2013 their fourth grand final defeat at the hands of Perth \u2013 \u201churt\u201d after coming in with confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hurts \u2013 we had big plans, we really wanted to come over here and keep this Perth crowd relatively quiet,\u201d he said to boos from the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately we weren\u2019t good enough to do that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sean Abbott reacts during the BBL Final loss.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Bison starts off with a BANG! | 00:22<\/p>\n
Shipperd lamented his side\u2019s batting in the loss, admitting they felt \u201c15 to 20 runs off\u201d where they needed to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cLosing six wickets in the last 30 balls takes a lot of that momentum to find that 20 runs we were looking for that may have enabled us to create some pressure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cScorchers opening pair did a terrific job to weather the initial onslaught.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were outplayed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, Shipperd was proud of his team \u2013 particularly star Steve Smith who finished the Sixers\u2019 leading run scorer despite playing only the back end of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always would be our most dangerous batter,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe and Mitch (Starc) have been great servants of the franchise and Australian cricket. For them to play that Test series and then butter up and inject some life and energy and skill, talent into this competition so couldn\u2019t speak more highly of both of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have thought (Smith) is the best batter in the competition at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve had over the last five games \u2026 if you do a deep dive into the stats of some of the players in there at the moment, there\u2019s a great case for Smith to be parachuted in (to the T20 World Cup squad).<\/p>\n
Smith goes upon review | 01:53<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just understands batting. He\u2019s a great predictor, a great technician, he\u2019s got all the strokes \u2013 he\u2019s a 360 player and he\u2019s got experience and confidence \u2013 all the things you need to be one of the world\u2019s best batters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure he would like the opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s talked about the Olympics in so many years\u2019 time \u2013 that indicates to me he\u2019d still love to play the game and in World Cups, big tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sixers coach Greg Shipperd has already appealed to Cricket Australia to amend the schedule, as his side were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,689,35086,226958,227907,651,9203,740,81207,195833,2105,11288,18763,89821,9017,117300,102467,124540,3453,189821,673,677,227906,60180,701,22478,85,18784,670,158194,227908,227905,227904],"class_list":["post-436852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-cricket","tag-bbl-grand-final","tag-bison-starts","tag-brisbane","tag-catherine-healey","tag-cricket","tag-elite-level","tag-finn-allen","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-grand-final","tag-greg-shipperd","tag-jack-edwards","tag-janelle-st-pierre","tag-leading-run-scorer","tag-losing-side","tag-mark-waugh","tag-mitch-marsh","tag-moises-henriques","tag-new-south-wales","tag-oceania","tag-opening-pair","tag-perth-scorchers","tag-queensland","tag-sean-abbott","tag-sports","tag-steven-smith","tag-sydney","tag-sydney-sixers","tag-travel-toll","tag-travel-toll-leaves","tag-trip-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436852","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=436852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768365730_454_poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n