Captain Moises Henriques is not presuming the Sydney Sixers will be crowned 2019-20 Big Bash League champions, despite the probability of Saturday's final against the Melbourne Stars being rained out.
Tournament rules state that the home team will be awarded the title in the event of a washout. The Sixers are, indeed, the home team at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Sydney and Melbourne have been offered at 1.85 and 2.00, respectively, by bet365 to win the final.
“At the moment, the Sydney Sixers are just the hosts of the final, to already be calling a T20 game off, it only takes 50 minutes to make a game We've already seen today, even after 30 millimetres in two hours or something like that, the ground just dries off straight away. Considering you need only a five-over game to take place, so you only need a little break in that four-hour window to get a game in,” said Henriques.
“So we've prepared as per usual. We had our team meeting after finding out who we're playing, completely expecting at least some sort of game of cricket to happen.”
The Stars finished head of the Sixers in the eight-team standings after the round-robin stage of this season's BBL. The Sixers and Stars contested a rain-affected match earlier this season. The Sixers won that fixture.
“To know that we can win in a rain affected game even though we lost the toss is a really important thing going into this game – stay unemotional about the bat-flip, you could lose some overs, start as a 20-over game then it changes and you have to adjust again. The fact we did that last time, the guys we will take confidence out of that,” added Henriques.
BBL history for Sydney Sixers
The Sixers won Australia‘s first BBL in 2011-12. They lost the final to the Perth Scorchers in 2016-17, when Henriques missed a run-out opportunity to tie the scores.
“Even the fact the scores were tied with three balls to go and even just to take it to the last ball shows a lot about the way we play our cricket. This year, again, we've shown that a lot of those close games now we're starting to win. We've got guys that have experienced those close fixtures, they know what it feels like to both lose and succeed and what emotions play and how to remain calm and make good decisions in those moments,” he concluded.
