10.25 pm So Heat lose 7 of their first 9 games, but then surge into the playoffs after the return of Khawaja and Labuschagne from international duty. They've now won two playoff matches in a row with both Khawaja and Labuschagne playing key roles, but if they're going to beat Sydney Sixers in the Challenger Final on Thursday, they'll have to do it without Khawaja and Labuschagne. Similarly the Sixers will be without Steven Smith, arguably the most in-form batter in the tournament at the moment. Not sure what that will mean for the level of quality that will be produced during the match itself. Serious discussion needs to be had about the scheduling of the BBL, particularly when the playoffs are placed in the calendar, if it means that the marquee Australian stars don't participate to make the best product possible.

Heat captain Usman Khawaja: "Coming into this tournament with a new team, there was a lot of hard work to be done. We didn't have a very good start. It's always tough coming into a team that hasn't won. The vibe is tough. All me and Marnus tried to do was lift the guys with a bit of new energy. It's been a team effort all the way through and we've won 6 of the last 7. [Asked about Heat's chances against the Sixers with Australia's Test players leaving after this match] I still think we have a lot of good depth. I really didn't score many runs until the last couple of innings. The top four didn't really do much. The bottom guys were getting us out of trouble and we won lots of games doing that. I'm sure the guys coming in well do well. Fingers crossed we keep riding this momentum. But the Scorchers and Sixers are the teams to beat and have been the best teams in the competition for a very long time now. They're clearly the best two in the competition this year. We're gonna need something special from our guys but in T20, anything is possible. I got a lot of good starts, some 20s with really good strike rates but just couldn't kick on. I was focused on tempo tonight. I know we have a lot of power-hitting all the way through and wanted to stay out there as long as I can and get runs with positive intent. I guess I went deep enough and Renners came out, he's been batting amazing for us all tournament and batted beautifully again tonight."

That's it for tonight's live coverage. Come back on Thursday for the Challenger Final between the Heat and Sixers. The winner goes on to the Grand Final on Saturday in Perth against the Scorchers. Enjoy the next few days off. Until then, take care! And be sure to flip over to live ball-by-ball coverage of the Women's U19 T20 World Cup Final between England and India, or the live coverage of the second men's ODI between South Africa and England. See you later!

Asad Abbasi : "My geometry isn't good at all. Please help me understand how Sutherland missed it by two yards when it was only one yard away from stumps." The ball was two yards wide of the stumps at the intersection point of where the ball would have had to connect on a north-south plane.