Tim Paine, who had a heated exchnage with Stars’ president Eddie McGuire in the build up to his match whcih made him public enemy No.1 at the MCG, was the hoghest scorer for the Hobart Hurricanes as the Melbourne Stars suffered a shock semi-final loss.
Melbourne Stars, who were unbeaten in eight games in the home-and-away season, chose to bat first on Tuesday night plunged to 37/3 before overcoming the early collapse to post a total of 8/141 on a slow pitch.
The Hurricanes in reply scored 3/142 and won the match with 11 balls to spare to advance to Friday’s final. The main contributor in Hurricane’s victory was Tim Paine who smashed 65 off 52 balls.
It’s the third time in the BBL’s three-year history the Stars have been eliminated at the semi-final stage.
Ben Dunk (30), who was adjudged player of the tournament, gave the Hurricanes an excellent start to their run chase by adding 51 for the first wicket with Paine.
Shoaib Malik, though, made just three before Australia T20 skipper George Bailey joined Paine for a 64-run stand which took them close to a victory. Paine was run out attempting a second run in the 17th over at 3-127, while Bailey remained unbeaten on 32.
Earlier, Hurricanes’ legspinner Cameron Boyce produced career-best figures of 3/11 in his three overs as Hurricanes restricted stars to a modest total. Boyce took the key scalp of Glenn Maxwell, Luke Wright, and David Husey.
Brad Hodge, the 39-year-old who was recalled recently to the national T20 side last week, top-scored for the Stars with 51 off 35 balls.
The build-up to the match saw plenty of heat exchanges between the two sides.
Stars’ president Eddie McGuire threatened with a legal action on Monday morning after Paine had suggested in a radio interview the Stars operated under a different salary cap than other teams.
Paine in response issued an apology on Monday night. Paine, though, also said that Hobart would be doing every other team a favour if they beat the unpopular Stars.
The Hurricanes now will play the Sydney Sixers or the Perth Scorchers in Friday’s final.
“I would have really liked to have been there at the end to really enjoy the win,” Tim Paine said in a post match interview.
Asked about the pre-match storm over the salary cap issue, Paine added: “It didn’t affect me one bit.”
“Just to be there at the end would have been some nice icing on a tough kind of couple of days,” Paine remarked.
When asjed about the third consecutive semi-final loss Stars skipper Cameron White said: “They hurt a lot, especially going through this series undefeated – your hopes are high.”
“This is the first (semi-final) at home as well so that’s really disappointing.”
