Sydney Sixers 151 for 7 (Philippe 47, Silk 35, McAndrew 2-17) beat Sydney Thunder 132 (Warner 37, O’Keefe 3-13) by 19 runs
At 44 for 0 after the powerplay, Thunder were on track chasing 152. But Hales was bowled by a delivery that barely bounced from the round-arm O’Keefe then Cameron Bancroft missed one that went through the gate.
On a tricky surface life became very tough for Thunder and Warner was left trying to hold the innings together but came seriously bogged down: he had been 15 off 7 early on before ending with 37 off 39.
Sixers’ seamers used changes of pace to excellent effect and a key moment came when the dangerous Ollie Davies skied to cover shortly after scooping consecutive boundaries in the first of the power surge with Daniel Sams also falling inside the fielding restrictions.
There was a huge sense of disappointment around the crowd when Smith top-edged his first-ball pull and it landed in the hands of deep square leg. However, it was not as though he owed Sixers too many runs having made 407 at 81.40 in his six previous appearances over the last two seasons.
James Vince and Josh Philippe built steadily from there, although only the latter was really fluent. Vince fell when he swiped across a delivery that kept low from debutant legspinner Toby Gray. Moises Henriques started brightly with two boundaries before driving to mid-off as Sixers stuttered towards the midway point.
Legspinner Tanveer Sangha was again very impressive although his first wicket of Philippe came with one of his worst deliveries when a short delivery was cut to cover. Jack Edwards then had his off stump shaved by Nathan McAndrew.
But Jordan Silk showed his value with 35 off 29 balls and Ben Dwarshuis cleared the rope in the final over to break the 150 mark. Not for the first time, it was enough for Sixers.