Honour and despair for Voges on Australia Day

On Sunday morning, Adam Voges was recognised on the Australia Day Honours List, awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to cricket.

By Sunday evening he was searching for answers as to why his side's season was about to come to an end. 

Voges could only watch on as his charges lost to Sydney Thunder by seven wickets in a rain-affected match in Sydney to put them in danger of missing the finals before Matthew Wade's whirlwind hundred in Hobart's win over Adelaide eliminated the three-time BBL champions.

It is a tough fate to accept for Voges, who believed his side was good enough to mix it with the best on their day.

But the Scorchers' failure to close tight games has come back to bite them.

On December 23 in Adelaide, Perth were motoring at 0-124 after nine overs chasing 199 to win from 18 overs. But a magic spell of bowling by Afghan wrist-spinner Rashid Khan turned the game on its head and the Scorchers could not recover to lose by 15 runs.

A month later, the Scorchers had restricted the Melbourne Stars to 6-141 from 20 overs at the MCG but could not take advantage of the low target as part-timer spinner Nic Maddinson finished with three wickets. 

Had Perth nabbed one of those games they would have finished the regular season on 14 points and qualified for the five-team BBL Finals.

Along with missing the big moments, Voges says the Scorchers heavily relied on a trio of batters and bowlers without having an even contribution across the board.

Voges picked out opening duo of Liam Livingstone (425 runs), Josh Inglis (405) and skipper Mitch Marsh (382) as the standout batters, while leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed and pace pair Jhye Richardson and Chris Jordan were the pick of the bowlers, each with 15 wickets in BBL|09.

Cameron Bancroft, with 290 runs, is the only other Scorchers batter to score more than 120 runs this season and Matt Kelly's haul of eight wickets was the next-best behind the bowling trio singled out by Voges.

Reflecting on the season, Voges was disappointed knowing his side had the talent to take out the title but lacked the consistency to achieve it.

"You look back and there's a number of moments over a 14-game season … a run chase in Adelaide, a run chase against the Stars in Melbourne, little bits and pieces, a couple of big moments that we weren't able to win," Voges said.

"We probably asked a bit too much from too few this year.

"We had some really high-quality-performers; I thought Liam Livingstone, Josh Inglis, Mitch Marsh with the bat were outstanding. Fawad, Jhye Richardson, Chris Jordan were brilliant with the ball.

"We asked a bit too much of those six and probably need a few more contributions along the way.

"I thought there was a lot of positive signs. We certainly showed that our best was good enough we just didn't show it often enough."