{"id":378254,"date":"2026-01-19T10:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T10:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/378254\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T10:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T10:03:12","slug":"big-bash-league-2026-results-mitchell-starc-steve-smith-and-sam-curran-put-sydney-sixers-in-play-offs-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/378254\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Bash League 2026 results: Mitchell Starc, Steve Smith and Sam Curran put Sydney Sixers in play-offs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sydney Sixers secured second-place in the Big Bash League and their spot in Tuesday&#8217;s qualifier match with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/cricket\/scorecard\/e-229092\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">five-wicket win over Brisbane Heat<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Heat, who could have qualified for the play-offs at Sixers&#8217; expense with a win, finish fifth despite scoring 171-9 in a first innings where Mitchell Starc took 4-35.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sixers batters Steve Smith and Sam Curran both made half-centuries and put on 60 for the fourth wicket, with their side passing their target in the penultimate over of the innings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nathan McSweeney top-scored for Heat after they were put into bat, hitting an unbeaten 69 from number three.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McSweeney added 48 with Michael Neser (35) for the seventh wicket, but saw other partners fall cheaply with no other Heat batter passing 20.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sixers lost top-order batters Babar Azam and Josh Philippe for one and eight respectively, but Smith&#8217;s early hitting set his side on course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Australia vice-captain was bowled for 54 by Zaman Khan, but Curran took over, hitting 15 runs off Matthew Kuhnemann&#8217;s 18th over to reach 53 off 27 balls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Needing 11 to win, Lachlan Shaw smashed a four and a six off the next two balls, but was caught behind off Xavier Bartlett with the scores level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jack Edwards then finished the game in style, lifting Bartlett for a match-winning six over square leg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Big Bash play-off schedule<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tuesday, 20 January: Qualifier &#8211; Perth Scorchers v Sydney Sixers (06:30 GMT)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wednesday, 21 January: Knockout &#8211; Hobart Hurricanes v Melbourne Stars (08:15 GMT)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Friday, 23 January: Challenger &#8211; Winner of Knockout v Loser of Qualifier (08:15 GMT)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sunday, 25 January: Final &#8211; Winner of Qualifier v Winner of Challenger (08:15 GMT)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Listen to ball-by-ball commentary on each game on BBC Sounds (UK users only). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sydney Sixers secured second-place in the Big Bash League and their spot in Tuesday&#8217;s qualifier match with a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-378254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}