Sangha's late onslaught lifts Thunder after being hit with Covid

They won the Boost Point, but there was little else to cheer the Adelaide crowd up on an abject night for the Adelaide Strikers, who slumped to their sixth defeat in seven games. This one - a 22-run loss - came at the hands of a Sydney Thunder side ravaged by Covid-19-related absences, but Jason Sangha made up for all that with a blistering unbeaten 91 off 55 that powered them through to 187. That came despite something of a struggle in the first ten overs, in which they managed just 65, but a stunning onslaught that saw 79 come off the final five redressed the balance.

The Strikers began positively enough but lacked the power hitting, both at the top and tail of the innings, to really threaten the target. As such, Thunder appeared to coast to victory almost by default, the bowlers maintaining their disciplines without needing to do anything remarkable. Chris Green did his thing, keeping it tight in the middle overs, while Daniel Sams chipped in with four wickets. At the 15-over mark, the Strikers were still a few runs ahead of Thunder at that stage, but despite the best efforts of Jonathan Wells - who finished with 46 off 25 - they ended up falling comfortably short.

Until the final five overs of the innings, there was limited evidence Sangha would set a warm Adelaide evening alight. He'd managed 36 off 34 while Thunder stumbled along at a shade over seven, targeting 150-160 at best. But all that changed when Strikers captain Peter Siddle brought himself back on. Sangha greeted him with a boundary and two sixes off the next five balls, and as the gears shifted, something appeared to click for the 22-year-old. Those final five overs would see Thunder plunder 79 runs, with Sangha contributing 55 of them for off just 22 deliveries.

It is a knock reminiscent of the one that Ben McDermott played for Hobart Hurricanes a couple of nights ago, where he bided his time before unleashing at the death. Sangha's heroics had similarly devastating consequences for the Strikers.

He even came on to turn his arm over in the second half of the innings, and took just three balls to pick up a wicket, further making his mark on a night that very firmly belonged to him.

It's been a rough few days for English cricketers out in Australia. George Garton found out that wasn't just limited to those wearing whites in the Ashes. In two of his last three games for the Strikers, the allrounder went for 41 in four and 48 in three, with the trend very much continuing tonight.

He went for nine in the second over of the night, but things were going to get much worse than that. When he came on for the 13th over, Sangha had only managed 13 off 20 balls, but Garton found himself dispatched for a pair of sixes at the Australian began to find his feet. By the time he was thrown the ball for another go in the 19th over, Sangha was in full flow, and Garton on a hiding to nothing. Three sixes and a boundary meant his final involvement with the ball was the costliest over of the game, leaking 23 and setting Thunder on course for a comfortable victory.

With the bat, Garton never found fluency, and an ugly swipe saw his innings end on 8 off 11.

The home side called for the Power Surge immediately after drinks, but it happened to coincide with the time Thunder were applying the squeeze especially effectively. Matt Renshaw struck a couple of boundaries off Saqib Mahmood to get things going. But when he chipped the last ball of the over to Green, the Strikers appeared to collapse in on themselves.

Jake Weatherald, who had hung around for a pretty, if non-menacing, 31, also found Green at mid-off three balls later. Sangha would nail Thomas Kelly in the over that followed, and Strikers curiously opted against promoting Rashid Khan up the order even as the asking rate ballooned. The Strikers had fallen apart around the Power Surge, and in the absence of a Sangha-like figure, simply left themselves with too much to do at the death.