The Perth Scorchers will face the Sydney Sixers in the men’s Big Bash final for the fourth time after beating Brisbane by 49 runs.
It marks the Scorchers’ sixth trip to the decider, but their first since 2017, when they scored a nine-wicket win over the Sixers.
The Scorchers and Sixers also faced off in the final in 2015, won by Perth, and the inaugural BBL final in 2012, won by Sydney.
More recently, they played in the first week of this year’s finals, when the Sixers comfortably won by nine wickets.
The rematch will be played on Saturday night at the SCG with 75 per cent capacity allowed in the stands.
Despite being robbed of a home final by a positive COVID-19 diagnosis in Perth, the Scorchers looked right at home at Manuka Oval in Canberra on Thursday night.
After being sent in to bat, opener Liam Livingstone almost immediately took to the Heat bowling, smashing his fourth ball for six and his next for four.
He and Cameron Bancroft, a late call-up for injured English opener Jason Roy, kept the run rate up at nine through nine overs before a monstrous 27-run over off Marnus Labuschagne got them really rolling.
Livingstone eventually holed out for a stunning 77 off 39 in the 12th over, but Bancroft and Mitch Marsh picked up the baton and ran with it.
Marsh only faced 28 balls, but whacked a quarter of them for boundaries (five fours and a six) as he powered to 49 not out.
Bancroft was 58 not out when the rain ended their innings at the start of the 19th over, and with the score at 1-189, the odds were stacked against Brisbane.
The odds only lengthened when the victory target was adjusted via the Duckworth-Lewis method to 200 off 18 overs.
The Heat showed some signs of life in the third over of the chase, with Joe Denly and Chris Lynn pummelling 22 off six Jhye Richardson deliveries, but it was to be the highlight of the innings.
Denly and Lynn were gone in successive balls at the end of the next over from Jason Behrendorff, and with the openers went Brisbane’s hopes of victory.
Wickets came about as regularly as boundaries through the final 14 overs, with the Heat totally outclassed in the end, finishing their 18 overs on 9-150.
