Adelaide Strikers’ six-game winning run ended by big-hitting Sydney Sixer Alyssa Healy
Adelaide Strikers had a slight hiccup ahead of the WBBL finals, succumbing to the Sydney Sixers at Hurstville Oval on Sunday.
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Adelaide Strikers’ six-game winning streak came to an end against an Alyssa Healy-inspired Sydney Sixers outfit in the WBBL on Sunday.
Healy’s incredible 84 off just 38 balls - at the astonishing strike rate of 221 - saw the home team pile on 7/177 batting first at Hurstville Oval.
Coming off back-to-back ducks and with just 16 runs in her past five knocks, Healy took out her frustration on the Strikers bowlers, belting seven sixes in her whirlwind dig.
She looked on target for her second ton of the campaign before being bowled by Adelaide skipper Suzie Bates in the 14th over, preventing the Sixers from posting 200-plus.
In reply, Strikers run machine Sophie Devine (60 off 38) did her best to emulate the power hitting of her Sixers top order counterpart - blasting four maximums - but she had little help through the middle order as her team fell short on 7/164.
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Healy’s dazzling final-round innings came too late to prevent a proud record tumbling as both the Sixers and Sydney Thunder missed the WBBL finals.
The goose was already cooked for the Sixers (fifth, 7-7) when the Melbourne Renegades beat the Thunder (sixth, 5-8) to clinch a semi-final berth earlier on Sunday.
Their inability to win without injured skipper Ellyse Perry in the last fortnight had cost them dearly as they missed the WBBL finals for the first time.
“Unfortunately I couldn’t do that five games ago,” Healy said.
“But it was nice for us to finish off the season with a really good win in front of some really loyal Sixers fans.”
It’s the first time in women’s domestic cricket league history that a NSW team won’t feature in the finals of a competition, dating back 22 years to the start of the Women’s National Cricket League in 1996-97, the women’s Twenty20 Cup (from 2009-10) and WBBL (from 2015-16).