That brings an end to our coverage for this game. This is Akshay Bhide, signing off, on behalf of my co-commentator Hitesh Peddurwar and scorer Manish Bishnoi. Until next time, cheers and goodbye.
Matthew Gilkes (Player of the match):" Yeah it's a sigh of relief to have a bit of luck on your way. It's always amazing to play with David Warner in the middle. Yeah, it was just tactics to go slow at the start as the ball was not coming onto the bat easily at the start. Yeah, it's really good to be back on the winning track. It is always a good feeling to play on this ground."
04:50 PM IST | Akshay: That’s it. Sydney Thunder break their losing streak and get back to winning ways. They beat Melbourne Renegades by eight wickets and grab their sixth win to jump to the fourth spot in the points table. They join Melbourne Renegades who also have 12 points to their name.
Chasing 143 was going to be a tough task on this tricky surface. Thunder openers Matthew Gilkes and David Warner took their time to settle in. They got off to a steady start as they scored 25 at the end of the powerplay. Both put 57 between them before Warner departed on 26 in the ninth over. Debutant Corey Rocchiccioli dismissed Oliver Davies on the next ball as it helped the Renegades get back in the contest. Gilkes was dropped by Fawad Ahmed and he made the Renegades pay a heavy price for it.
Gilkes along with Alex Ross started building the partnership. The southpaw brought up his fifty and took the game away from the Renegades. They found regular boundaries and kept the required run rate under control. Both Gilkes and Ross remained unbeaten on 74 and 40 respectively as they guided their side across the line with nine balls to spare. Rocchiccioli bowled beautifully and finished with figures of 2/25 in his four overs. The other bowlers failed to step up as they were unsuccessful in defending the total.
Earlier, the Renegades opted to bat first. They didn’t have the best of starts as Jake Fraser-McGurk and Sam Harper departed early in the innings. Martin Guptill along with his skipper Aaron Finch led the recovery work. Guptill fell on 30 and it allowed Thunder to pull back things. They picked up wickets at regular intervals and the Renegades lost their way heading into the slog overs.
Will Sutherland walked in to bat at seven and played a fantastic knock to change the whole complexion of the match. He hit some lusty blows in the end to help his side post a competitive total on the board. He scored 26 runs in the last over off Daniel Sams and remained unbeaten on 42 off 23 balls to take his side to 142 at the end of their 20 overs. Thunder picked up nine wickets in total, with Chris Green and Usman Qadir finishing with two each.
18.3 K Richardson to A Ross
4 FOUR!!!! Length delivery on the stumps, Ross shuffles across the stumps and scoops it past short fine leg for a boundary. It races away to the fence in a flash and Thunder chase down the total with nine balls to spare to win the game by eight wickets.
18.2 K Richardson to M Gilkes
1 A slower delivery around off, Gilkes mistimes the drive past the bowler for a single. Kane gets a hand on it but fails to grab it.
18.1 K Richardson to M Gilkes
0 Back of the length delivery outside the off-stump line, Gilkes gets on top of the ball and punches it towards point.
OVER 18
Sydney Thunder
139/2
Alex Ross
36(31)
Matthew Gilkes
73(53)
Fawad Ahmed
0-40(4.0)
17.6 F Ahmed to A Ross
4 FOUR MORE!!!! Fuller length delivery on the leg stump line. Ross gets down on one knee and reverse sweeps it towards the right of the man at short third man the ball races away towards the fence for four runs.
17.5 F Ahmed to A Ross
4 FOUR!!!!! Wrong'un on the middle stump line, Ross comes down the track uses his bottom hand and hammers it towards the deep backward square leg region for four runs.