'A bit schoolgirl', but Sixers still in the hunt: Perry

Ellyse Perry has called on the Sydney Sixers to lift in the field after recent displays the star allrounder described as "schoolgirl" and "timid".

But Perry remains confident her team is still in the hunt for the Weber WBBL finals, sitting fifth on the ladder with four games to play following back-to-back eight-wicket losses to the Brisbane Heat and Adelaide Strikers this week.

The Sixers were unable to defend scores of 2-159 and 4-142 at Karen Rolton Oval, slipping out of the top four in the process.

"To be honest, I think our batting has been pretty good the last few days, it's more been our missed execution with the ball," Perry said following Wednesday's defeat.

"Our plans are fine, when we hit the spots we want to bowl, we've been good at restricting their batters but we just missed way too many times.

"Some of our fielding, to be honest, is a little bit schoolgirl at the moment.

"We just looked scared of the ball and there are just naïve errors which are costing us in such a strong and tough comp.

"The effort from the girls has been phenomenal, they're a really great group and they try their absolute hardest, I just think at times we're a little bit timid and we just need to give ourselves a little more of a chance to step into the game and attack it."

Perry acknowledged both totals in Adelaide this week were under-par but is confident her team is on the right track with bat in hand.

The Sixers shook up their batting order midway through the season, returning Perry to the top of the order alongside Alyssa Healy and moving Shafali Verma to the middle-order.

The India opener hit an aggressive 53no on Wednesday, helping the Sixers recover after they lost their top three batters in the space of 10 balls.

"Shafali batted really well (on Wednesday), we've asked her to do a different role in the middle-order there and there's been a couple of times she's really come out and attacked that position and done really well there," Perry said.

"Those (early) wickets when we had momentum cost us a bit and we were about 30 runs short, and think would made game little tighter end there."

The Sixers finished fifth in the past two WBBL seasons and Perry is desperate not to see a repeat of that outcome in WBBL|07.

They have a difficult run home with matches to come against the third-ranked Heat and second-ranked Scorchers but will also meet bottom-ranked Sydney Thunder and have a second showdown against the Strikers that could turn into a virtual elimination final.

"We're still in the hunt, we're going to have to play really well, and we've got some of the harder teams to play in the next couple of games," she said.

"But I think we've shown when we've played good cricket this season we've been up there with some of the best teams in the competition.

"We don't have much room to move, it's pretty black and white for us."