Perth Scorchers BBL preview: Squad capable of correcting last season's errors

Captain Mitchell Marsh

Coach Adam Voges

Squad Ashton Agar, Fawad Ahmed, Cameron Bancroft, Jason Behrendorff, Joe Clarke (Eng), Cameron Gannon, Cameron Green, Aaron Hardie, Josh Inglis, Matthew Kelly, Liam Livingstone (Eng), Mitchell Marsh, Colin Munro (NZ), Joel Paris, Kurtis Patterson, Jhye Richardson, Jason Roy (Eng), Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Sam Whiteman

In Joe Clarke, Colin Munro, Jason Roy
Out Chris Jordan, Morne Morkel (Heat)

Overseas player availability Joe Clarke (replacement player until Dec 25), Liam Livingstone (quarantine until Dec 25), Colin Munro (all season) , Jason Roy (quarantine until Dec 25)

Last season: 6th

The Scorchers really only had themselves to blame for the missing the playoffs with coach Adam Voges lamenting that they just lost a couple of key moments late in the season. After starting the season well with a revamped squad they lost four of their last five matches to let a finals berth slip away producing some dismal batting efforts in back-to-back losses to the Stars and their final game against the Thunder.

Bubble impact

The Scorchers will be without two of their key overseas signings in Liam Livingstone and Jason Roy until Christmas as both need to quarantine for 14 days after arriving late from South Africa (although their involvement could now be in doubt given the Covid outbreak at the team hotel in Cape Town) but they have signed Colin Munro and Joe Clarke as cover for the first part of the tournament. The Scorchers local players will be barely impacted by international hubs with only Cameron Green set to be unavailable for large portions of the tournament due to his selection in Australia's Test squad.

Player to watch

Josh Inglis isn't a household name yet but the 25-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman had an excellent season last year and is certainly a player to keep an eye on. He made 405 runs last season with four half-centuries, but his strike-rate of 153.99 was clearly the best of the top 10 run-scorers in the BBL. He formed a formidable opening partnership with Livingstone and he is also the Scorchers best player of spin. His glovework is also highly regarded.

Key stat

The Scorchers were at one point the most successful team in the BBL. But in the last three years, they have been at the bottom. The Scorchers have won just 18 of the 39 matches played and have lost a lot of players due to injuries. Last season they had the best strike-rate at the death scoring at 10.32 runs per over. The return of Jason Behrendorff and the addition of Roy and Munro could help them improve their win-loss record this year.