Marsh injured but Perth into BBL decider

Steve Barrett |

Perth’s Mitch Marsh injured his hamstring in the Scorchers’ huge BBL win over the Sydney Sixers.
Perth’s Mitch Marsh injured his hamstring in the Scorchers’ huge BBL win over the Sydney Sixers.

The Perth Scorchers will be sweating on the fitness of gun allrounder Mitch Marsh after rollicking into the BBL decider with a thumping 48-run win over the Sydney Sixers in the Qualifier at Marvel Stadium.

Marsh, in career-best nick with 342 runs at 68.40 this campaign, sustained tightness in his right hamstring while stroking a quickfire 28 on Saturday night.

Scorchers coach Adam Voges is confident the injury is minor and that Marsh will be fit for Sunday’s final.

“Just a bit of tightness from what I can understand,” Voges said.

“I had a good chat with our physio and he seems to think it’s at the minor end of some tightness.

“All his strength testing was pretty good, so (it was) cautionary to not put him on the field.

“We’ll monitor him over the next little bit and hopefully he’ll be okay.”

Marsh’s absence in the field didn’t hinder the Scorchers, who easily defended their 3-189 by skittling the Sixers for 140, despite No.9 Ben Dwarshuis’s audacious 66.

The Sixers, denied their request to select Steve Smith after an appeal to the BBL technical committee to have him included was rejected, have their own injury concerns.

Daniel Hughes, originally named in the XI, rolled his left ankle on the boundary rope during warm-ups and was replaced by Nicholas Bertus 20 minutes before the start of play.

Josh Inglis (79) bludgeoned his way out of a form rut with his best BBL score, combining with Kurtis Patterson (64) for a 120-run first-wicket stand before the Scorchers bowlers ripped through the Sixers’ batting line-up.

Jhye Richardson (2-21) and Jason Behrendorff (2-31) were lethal with the new ball as the Sixers slumped to 4-21 before Ashton Agar (2-16) applied the squeeze during the middle overs.

The two-time reigning champions slumped to 7-55 before Dwarshuis spared them from total embarrassment by going on a power-hitting spree, smoking his maiden BBL half-century.

Dwarshuis clubbed AJ Tye for 24 runs in the 19th over to put some positive spin on an otherwise difficult evening for the Sixers who will tackle either the Sydney Thunder or Adelaide Strikers in the Challenger on Wednesday.

AAP