Hurricanes blow Thunder away to reignite finals hopes

The match in a tweet: Hurricanes keep season alive – again – as D'Arcy Short stars with ball in George Bailey's farewell to Hobart #BBL09

The score: Hobart Hurricanes (Wright 64, Wade 56, Bailey 29; Sams 4-34) defeated Sydney Thunder 128 (Hales 63, Ross 36; Short 5-21) by 57 runs with 15 balls to spare

The hero: D'Arcy Short begun the game with a duck but finished it as the game's most decisive player after taking his maiden five-wicket haul in any format.

Eager to make up for his second-ball duck in his return from Australia's tour of India, Short struck twice in his second over and effected the match's most important moment when he dismissed the threatening Alex Hales (63 off 42 balls).

Hales looked ominous after blasting four sixes in the Power Play against his former side and took 23 off one Clive Rose over.

But as the required run-rate spiraled above 11 runs per over and the Thunder fielding a bowler-heavy XI, the Hurricanes knew the chase rested entirely on the Englishman's shoulders.

They celebrated accordingly when Hales sliced one to short third man off the wrist-spin of Short, who then removed fellow international Chris Morris and 'keeper Jay Lenton to effectively end the Thunder's hopes of victory.

The 29-year-old then grabbed two more in his final over to return his first ever haul of more than three wickets in any professional format as the Thunder lost 8-28 in an extraordinary five-over collapse.

And having scored 6-185 despite Short being clean bowled by Arjun Nair without scoring, the Hurricanes know they will be able to give the finals a real shake-up if they can win their final match on Sunday and snag fourth or fifth spot.

The sign-off: George Bailey could hardly have given a more in-character farewell to Tasmania.

In what was likely his final game at Blundstone Arena before he takes up his new job as a national selector, Bailey played a sometimes-streaky, mostly-effective and always-entertaining cameo to boost the Hurricanes to 6-185.

The 37-year-old smashed 29 off just 10 balls, mis-hitting a few that went for four, narrowly avoiding being caught twice, slogging one for a 77-metre six onto the hill before falling flat on his backside while scooping a boundary.

It was far from his most fluent knock but in a way that made it even better, earning a rapturous ovation from 8,468-strong crowd and acknowledging it in true Bailey fashion; with a modest flourish of his bat.

The support cast: The short square boundaries could not have suited Matthew Wade more, with the Test batter blazing away despite the early loss of Short, while rookie batter Mac Wright continued his impressive back-end of BBL09.

Wade and Wright went at nearly 10 runs per over in an entertaining 97-run second-wicket partnership that provided the backbone of the Hurricanes' match-winning total.

The overs immediately after the Power Play have been a problem area for the Hurricanes at times during the tournament but the duo carefully picked off their targets, as Wright blasted 18 runs off one Gurinder Sandhu over.

Wade smashed the returning Daniel Sams for a four and six off the first two balls of the tournament's leading wicket taker's second over to bring up a 32-ball half-century, though the left-arm quick immediately got his revenge with Wade’s wicket in that over.

Wright went on to post 64 off 45 balls, with the right-hander deceptively powerful with three sixes, to continue his good form after posting an unbeaten 70 three days prior. A terrific catch running in off the mid-wicket fence capped a superb night for the 22-year-old.

The consolation effort: Dismissing three Australian limited-overs representatives, including one who will soon be selecting them, will have done Daniel Sams' status as an international T20 dark horse no harm.

The tournament's leading wicket-taker extended his hold on the BKT Golden Cap with a vital four-wicket haul with the scalps of Wade, Bailey, Ben McDermott and top-scorer Mac Wright.

The Hurricanes lost 4-44 through the middle overs, with Sams taking three of them.

His off-spinning slower ball continues to prove a wicket-taking weapon and while his new-ball skills weren't used as the Thunder elected for spin early, the left-armer has proved the complete package in BBL09.

The catch: With teammates Alex Ross and Daniel Sams trying and failing to pull off similar catches, Alex Hales showed them how it was done.

As David Miller skewered a swipe towards long-on, Hales took the grab above his head merely inches away from the boundary rope. Realising his momentum was going to carry him over it, he balanced himself calmly on his right foot, flicked the ball up with his left hand, clipped the rope with his feet as he jumped over it and dived full length back into the field of play to complete the catch.

It comes after Matthew Renshaw helped pull off a somewhat similar grab earlier in the tournament, taking advantage of a 2013 rule change allowing fielders to go outside the boundary line to complete catches.

The stat: Sams is having a terrific campaign with the ball. The same cannot unfortunately be said about his batting.

Having played a number of important cameos in last year's tournament, Sams is now averaging 3.50 from 12 innings.

The next stop: The Hurricanes' victory puts them right back in the mix for a BBL09 finals berth, and by bowling the Thunder out so cheaply they were able to leapfrog them into fifth, level on 11 points on the standings, but now with a superior net run rate.

Both sides are in action for the final time in the regulars season on Australia Day, with the Thunder playing the Scorchers at the Sydney Showgrounds and the Strikers hosting the Hurricanes in Adelaide.

Hurricanes XI: Matthew Wade (c), D’Arcy Short, Mac Wright, David Miller, Ben McDermott (wk), George Bailey, James Faulkner, Clive Rose, Nathan Ellis, Qais Ahmad, Scott Boland

Thunder XI: Alex Hales, Usman Khawaja, Callum Ferguson (c), Alex Ross, Chris Morris, Jay Lenton (wk), Daniel Sams, Arjun Nair, Gurinder Sandhu, Jono Cook, Liam Bowe