At the other end, Ferguson carried on his belligerence. Lalor could only watch as the ball sailed high into the stands before Ferguson repeated the feat later in the 19th over. In the final over, Ferguson could only find the boundary once, and Sydney Thunder ended their innings on 6/172. 

Tom Banton and Max Bryant opened for Brisbane, with the Englishman taking two sighters before launching Daniel Sams for successive sixes. The result was 17 coming from the first over. However, Banton was soon walking back, when mistiming a shot off Jono Cook, for 16 from seven balls.

Heat continued to pursue an aggressive approach which was not unexpected with Bryant and Lynn at the wicket. And, not unexpected either, Bryant was caught on the boundary soon after to leave Brisbane 2/30. Cook was once again the bowler as the Thunder looked to exert pressure on the home side.

Lynn is a one-dimensional player – and what an aggressive, exciting, crowd-pleasing dimension that is when it works. His brief cameo lasted only nine runs but was enough to see him overtake  Michael Klinger's 1947 runs to become the all-time highest run scorer in BBL on 1954 runs.

However, carving Chris Tremain straight to Ferguson was not what the Heat required.

The fall of the captain brought Heazlett to the wicket to join Matthew Renshaw. At 3/40, the Heat needed a partnership to keep pace with the asking rate.

Renshaw and Heazlett adopted a less expansive approach, while Thunder employed Green and Arjun Nair to stifle the Heat batters. 

The introduction of Nathan McAndrew did little to encourage Renshaw and Heazlett to up their run rate. When Heazlett did try, his first shot in anger found Hales at long on to leave the Heat languishing on 4/67 in the tenth over.

Renshaw followed soon after when he hit Green’s low full toss straight to McAndrew at deep square leg for 26. It should have been far worse later in the same over but an awful throw from the covers, to Green, prevented the spinner from running out Ben Cutting with the batter in no man’s land.

In the 13th over, Brisbane caught a stroke of luck when McAndrew’s heel was judged to have touched the boundary before juggling Mark Steketee’s agricultural heave towards deep midwicket. It was unfortunate as McAndrew’s fielding arguably deserved more. However, there was an ever-growing feeling of futility to that batters’ attempts to chase down the total.

Needing a partnership to keep them in the game, Cutting and Steketee contrived to do that. Struggling to keep up with the run rate, despite adding 32 in 4.1 overs, Green found a peach of a yorker to make a mess of Steketee’s stumps.

Later in the over, a smart piece of fielding from Cook left Lalor short of his ground to leave Heat floundering at 7/114. Green finished his spell with excellent figures of 2-19 from his four overs.

Needing some lusty blows, Cutting obliged until Sams’ yorker ended the possibility of a win for the home team. Trying to make room to free his arms, Cutting managed to give Sams a target and the bowler did not miss.

Swepson, Zahir and Laughlin attempted to fix the mess that their batting line up had put them in, but they weren’t going to chase down the target.

Match Summary:

Sydney Thunder – 6/172 20 overs (Ferguson 73no, Ross 30, Swepson 2-11)

Brisbane Heat – 143 19.2 overs (Cutting 28, Green 2-19, Nair 2-22)

Sydney Thunder won by 29 runs

Attendance 26,784

Brisbane Heat: Chris Lynn (c), Tom Banton (wk), Max Bryant, Ben Cutting, Sam Heazlett, Josh Lalor, Ben Laughlin, Matt Renshaw, Mark Steketee, Mitch Swepson, Zahir Khan

Sydney Thunder: Callum Ferguson (c), Jonathan Cook, Matthew Gilkes, Chris Green, Alex Hales, Usman Khawaja, (wk), Nathan McAndrew, Arjun Nair, Alex Ross, Daniel Sams, Chris Tremain