Sydney Sixers 176/5 (20/20 ov)
Adelaide Strikers 182/5 (19.3/20 ov)
Adelaide Strikers won by 5 wickets (with 3 balls remaining)
Pantomime season's arrived in Adelaide. It's the final day of the year, so let the good times roll. Or the mad times, in this case. A bumper crowd of 46,389 watched on, rabid, riotous and ever so partisan, baying for Sydney blood, and creating a quite magnificent and utterly unique cricketing atmosphere. Travis Head gave them plenty of reason for additional cheer with a blitz so grand that Adelaide Strikers romped to a win after needing 51 off the last three overs.
There was niggle, needle, plenty of booing and a premature fireworks display, too. It was certainly secondary to the party, but a mighty game of cricket even broke out too, although it also contained its moments of high farce; funky overthrows, dodgy drops, attempted mankads, mystery injuries and plenty of bickering. But after all that - as far as the crowd was concerned at least - the good guys prevailed, with a young hometown hero steering the ship through troubled waters in a thrilling finish to a veritable short-form classic.
A night of such oddities, surely, was made for Brad Haddin. An injury-enforced reshuffle meant he swapped opener for finisher, coming in at No 4 and seeing an efficient Sydney Sixers' innings home, after Michael Lumb and Ed Cowan - making his first appearance of the campaign - got them off to a flyer. Lumb's 31 was his usual mix of legside hoicks, lusty hooks and bunted inside-out drives, and it took a moment of inspiration to remove him, as Alex Ross sprinted 30 yards round the offside fence to dive and intercept an uppish, well-struck drive. A ball later - Adil Rashid's first - Nic Maddinson was gone too, trapped plumb in front playing a rather odd reverse sweep.
Haddin joined Cowan, who ditched his usual orthodoxy with a couple of violent swipes to leg. It was that stroke that brought about his downfall, however, as he was caught at cow corner, and soon enough Rashid - now the competition's joint highest wicket-taker - had snared Jordan Silk and Ryan Carters too as they tried to accelerate the scoring rate.
Former Strikers captain Johan Botha - who was roundly booed and spent the night donning the near permanent scowl of a man wronged - and Haddin saw the innings through, sharing 71. Haddin twice slog-swept Rashid for six, and got after Kane Richardson too, while Botha ran hard before finding the boundary four times in the last two overs, including a magnificent swipe over point in the final over, a fractious affair bowled by Ben Laughlin. Laughlin and Haddin clashed when the batsman appeared to edge behind but stayed put, and the umpire doubled the home side's fury by adjudging it a wide.
Craig Simmons and Tim Ludeman got the Strikers' chase off to a brisk start. Simmons belted Jackson Bird's opening over for three fours, once through point, then either side of square leg. Next over, he sent Ben Dwarshuis high into the stands with a pull. Ludeman was quickly in on the act, taking a pair of boundaries from each of Doug Bollinger and Botha's opening overs. Simmons fell at the start of the fifth over, skying an attempted slog off Bird.
An over later, Mahela Jayawardene had feathered behind, and Ludeman soon followed, top-edging. Brad Hodge wriggled to 17 off 18, including one mighty six, but when the New Year's fireworks prematurely began, he and Alex Ross fell in quick succession to the impressive Dwarshuis, and the game looked up.
Enter Travis Head.
Head had taken 19 balls to find the fence, but was a man on the move, having recently biffed both Bird and Botha for sixes. Sean Abbott was set to bowl the 18th over, with Strikers still requiring 51 off 18 balls, with Head 45 off 38. Head sent Abbott for four to long-on, six to deep midwicket, four behind point, then for two enormous legside sixes. A single off the last ball kept the strike for Doug Bollinger's impressive over - the 19th of the innings - from which Head managed just one monstrous six over extra cover, to go with five other scampered runs. Adil Rashid, at the other end, was left to sprint his little legs off.
Abbott, amazingly, was left to bowl the last with Strikers needing 13 to win. No Adelaide Strikers batsman had ever made a BBL century and Head was 17 short of a maiden T20 ton. The first was a half-volley on leg stump. Six. Slower-ball bouncer. Six. Short again. Slapped. Six. Century. Pandemonium.
If 2016 is half as fun as all this, we are in for a treat.
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