The first Canberra match was the Stars vs Heat. The Stars had a full strength lineup barring the Bairstow fiasco, while their opponents gave Max Bryant a recall after nearly a year, and Matt Kuhnemann his second ever game in place of Swepson.
And it was clear immediately that the pitch wasn't like Hobart's. After Stoinis was run out trying to pinch a run in the second over, the Stars top order collapsed like all of their finals campaigns in history. Ben Dunk, then Andre Fletcher, played carbon copy shots that found Mujeeb at deep mid wicket within three balls of each other. After putting Lewis Gregory to the fence twice, Maddinson then joined them, sweeping Mujeeb straight to square leg to leave the Stars 4/26 after just 21 balls. The job then for Maxwell and Pooran was to build a partnership and, helped by some wayward bowling from Mujeeb's second over, they put on 34. This was ended by Kuhnemann grabbing Maxwell as his first BBL wicket when he went after him too hard and hit it straight up in the air. Pooran departed shortly after too, hooking a Gregory bouncer straight to the young man at leg gully. Zampa thrilled the crowd with two fours hit rather unconventionally before picking another boundary-rider, while Cartwright and Coulternile hit a few lusty blows and raised the score to 101.
Morkel was the bowling standout; F bowlers can be expensive but he kept the runs down while also dismissing Dunk and Zampa.
The Stars had managed to recover the innings to a score that would likely challenge the Heat given the pitch. It didn't faze Chris Lynn early. He struck some big hits off Coulter-Nile in particular, whose one over went for 16. However, the introduction of ex-Heat spinner Zahir Khan in the third over kept the runs down to a minimum, and an over later, Lynn, trying too hard to recover from the Khan over, found Zampa at deep square leg. Bryant and Lawrence steadied the ship but fell behind the required run rate (although not enough to cost them the bonus point). After a competent stand, Bryant this time went too big and he was dismissed by an excellent diving catch by Stoinis at long on.
At this point, the Heat were on 60- the same score the Stars lost their fifth wicket for. But if the Stars had a bad start, the Heat begun to have a bad finish from this point. Dan Lawrence hit a few good shots, mostly off Billy Stanlake, before picking out Nick Pooran at mid-on who took a good catch. Tom Cooper didn't quite get going to the strike rate needed and, on the last ball of the penultimate over, put one straight up in the air, rewarding Zahir's match winning spell with a wicket (2-0-6-1). The Heat needed 20 from the final over, and while Sam Heazlett hit a six, he was then run out trying to steal a bye. This left new batsman Lewis Gregory needing to score a 4 from his first delivery to have a chance of even tying, and he missed both he faced. The Stars had pulled off the comeback.
The results of the spinners and the mediums of Stoinis confirmed what we all knew- that the pitch was quite slow. Unfortunately for Coulter-Nile.
Despite winning by a bigger margin than the Sixers, the Stars did not get the bonus point and as such, the Sixers keep their competition lead.
