Khawaja powers Brisbane Heat into final three, as Renegades’ season ends

The Melbourne Renegades’ Big Bash League campaign is over, despite veteran Shaun Marsh carrying his bat with a season-high 82 not out in their knockout loss to the Brisbane Heat at Marvel Stadium on Sunday night.

Marsh hobbled through the final few overs of the Renegades’ innings as his fitness gave out, having only played a handful of matches this season due to soft tissue injuries.

Usman Khawaja top-scored for the Heat in their win over the Melbourne Renegades.Credit:Getty Images

But he provided a steady head at one end, as Sam Harper (22 off 21 balls), Matt Critchley (23 off 18) and Jonathan Wells (12 n.o. off four) helped the home side post 5-162 off its 20 overs.

But it wasn’t enough, as the Usman Khawaja-led Brisbane Heat chased down the 163-run target with seven balls to spare.

The win sees the Heat move into Thursday’s Challenger with the Sydney Sixers for a spot in Saturday’s final against the Perth Scorchers, but they’ll be without Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne and Matt Renshaw for the rest of the Heat’s campaign, as they join Australia’s Test squad for the tour of India.

Marnus Labuschagne of the Heat looks dejected after being dismissed.Credit:Getty Images

Renshaw said the Heat were confident they had enough depth to cover the three omissions.

“I think we’ve always had good depth in our batting group,” he said.

“You look at the start of the season when we didn’t have Marnus and ‘Uz’, Josh Brown came in and did what he did against the Sixers, Nathan McSweeney came in and made 84, we’ve got Max Bryant sitting on the bench, so we’ve got a lot of good talent in the wings waiting that just haven’t had an opportunity in the last few games.

“We’re expecting them to do great things.”

Khawaja won the toss and sent the Renegades into bat, with the home side struggling early to figure out the pace of the Docklands wicket.

Martin Guptill failed to fire at the top of the order with Marsh, dismissed cheaply in the second over for one, but the Heat missed an opportunity to send Marsh packing too when he was dropped at short fine leg by James Bazley in the fourth over.

That allowed the experienced West Australian and keeper-batsman Harper to build a platform for the innings. The pair put on a 50-run partnership in just 29 balls, before Harper was caught softly trying to ramp Xavier Bartlett over deep leg.

Skipper Aaron Finch came in at four, but made just 10 off 12 balls, before Critchley jump started the innings, moving from three off his first eight balls to 23 off 15, courtesy of consecutive sixes in the 15th over off Bazley.

But Bartlett struck again, luring Critchley into a mistake with a slower ball before finishing with man-of-the-match figures of 3-18 off his four overs.

Michael Neser was also efficient with the ball, taking 2-33, which should have been three wickets when Wells hit one straight to Labuschagne on the second last ball of the innings, only for the Test star to drop the catch. Wells then hit a six off the final ball to give the Renegades a total that Finch later described as a “par” score.

In the end, 162 proved too few, as Khawaja continued his insatiable form to help his side continue its finals campaign. He posted 59 off 47 balls, sharing in a 75-run first wicket partnership with Josh Brown (39 off 27) and a 47-run stand with Marnus Labuschagne (23 off 21).

When Labuschagne departed at 3-129 with still four overs to go, the Heat still needed 34 off 24 balls. But Renshaw powered the Heat to victory with an unbeaten 27 off 13 balls, amassing the 34 required in just 17 balls.

Meanwhile, 34,000 tickets for Saturday’s final at Optus Stadium in Perth sold out in four hours, exhausting the first allocation of public tickets for the decider.

An additional allocation of tickets will be made available for purchase later in the week, including an allocation for the fans of the away team.

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