Harvey soars, Hales roars, Gold Coast pours

The match in a tweet: Catch of the season, vintage SOS, a Hales storm and some classic Khawaja in a very entertaining clash ultimately ended early by the rain in the Thunder's favour

The score: Melbourne Renegades 6-166 (Marsh 87, McAndrew 3-41) lost to the Sydney Thunder 2-117 (12ov, Khawaja 48*, Hales 45) by seven runs on the DLS Method.

The catch: Boy oh boy, wowee, this is some grab, and really the only place to start when summing up this match. A few eyebrows were raised when Aaron Finch labelled Mackenzie Harvey "the best fielder it the world" on the Fox Cricket mic in the Renegades' last game. But Harvey showed why Australia's limited overs captain has such a big rap on him with a brilliant grab in the gully. Words won't do it justice, have a look at the video here, and just note the speed off the bat and how calmly the 20-year-old nephew of former Australia player Ian Harvey deals with it.

The over: A sidenote to that incredible catch was that it was the exclamation point to a pretty remarkable over all round, and made a prophet out of Finch.

For the Thunder's fourth over, Finch gave the ball to 20-year-old debutant Mitch Perry, and asked the youngster, "What do you reckon to Hales, here?" with the English opener already having 23 from 13 to his name. With the conversation broadcast over the Fox Cricket player mic, Perry and Finch negotiated tactics, the youngers perhaps understandably suggesting a defensive option. "We've still got to get him out, don't worry about that," Finch encouraged. "I'd rather you go for 20 trying to get him out than go for eight or 10 trying to be defensive."

Hales duly takes to the youngster and the over goes 4, 2, 6, 4, 6 and the first five balls have gone for 22 runs.

You know what's coming next … Hales steps up to the final ball, which is a low full toss, and smacks a blazing cut shot that simply rockets towards the gully region. It's hit so hard it's surely going to crash into the LED lighting strips beyond the boundary. But no, there's Harvey, a red blur flying to his left to pluck the ball out of the air, textbook perfect with two hands. Unreal, and the completely disbelieving reaction of Perry was all of us in that moment.

The consolation act: A classical Shaun Marsh performance, and one that didn't really deserve to end up on the losing side. With the odd delivery holding up off the surface, this Metricon Stadium surface wasn't the easiest to bat on but the 37-year-old made it look simple. At his best, he's one of the most elegant bats going around, and he played an array of eye-catching strokes here, driving through, and over the off side when the ball was pitched up, and pulling powerfully when the Thunder bowlers dropped short. A straight driven six down on one knee off Tanveer Sangha was good, the lofted on-drive for another maximum four balls later was even better. Marsh's fifty came up off 29 balls and the rain soon fell. After the resumption, Marsh upped the ante. His reactions to uppercut a beamer over the third man fence was remarkable, and he took full toll on Chris Green as the Thunder struggled to contain him with a wet ball. It was an innings deserving of a ton, but Marsh fell for 87, caught in the deep, but ended the night wearing the BKT Golden Cap as the competition's leading run scorer.

The hero: Alex Hales had the benefit of knowing the target, and knowing there was weather around. But it probably didn't make much difference to him given the form he's been in. Hales was scintillating again, and he had smashed 45 from just 19 balls with seven fours and two sixes before he fell to that catch from Harvey. Hales didn't pummel the grandstand at Metricon as much as he did at Manuka earlier in the week with longer square boundaries at the Gold Coast venue, but his aggression set the tone for the Thunder run chase and got them off to a flyer and, crucially, kept them well ahead of the Duckworth -Lewis-Stern par score. It meant the Thunder claimed their fifth straight win to go top of the BBL ladder.

The support act: Usman Khawaja was a 'passenger' in the nicest sense of the word during the Hales onslaught, but following his opening partner's dismissal, Khawaja came into his own, steering the Thunder towards the target with consummate ease. Driving the quicks on the up through the covers and reverse sweeping the spinners through the backward point region, Khawaja had shots all around the ground.

The (first) rain delay: With Marsh in full flow, Mohammad Nabi just hitting his straps and the Renegades signalling for the Power Surge, the Gold Coast skies opened. The 'Gades new the rain was coming and had planned to call the Surge early given nobody seemed to have any idea how the new rule would work in the event of a rain delay. As it turned out, with the match losing three overs per innings, the Surge was halved to one over each. Having called for it immediately before the delay, the Gades were obliged to take it on the resumption, with Marsh slamming a massive six over midwicket as 14 runs flowed. The Renegades took 67 all up from their final five overs after the rain delay to finish on 6-166.

The chat: Rain delays usually are interminable. But this one provided some compelling viewing as Fox Cricket's Adam Gilchrist, Mike Hussey and Mark Howard engaged in an extended chat with Usman Khawaja covering a range of topics.

The (second) rain delay: With the Sydney Thunder looking well placed in an entertaining run chase, the rains returned after 12 overs of their innings. With only a short window for the groundstaff to turn things around, the Renegades' luck ran out as the rain got heavier and the match was called off with the Thunder ahead of the par score.

The next stop: The Melbourne Renegades are off to Western Australia, where they will face the Perth Scorchers at what is sure to be a febrile atmosphere at Optus Stadium. The Sydney Thunder, meanwhile, roll on up the M1 to Brisbane where they next face the Heat on Monday evening in the second match of that day's double header.

Melbourne Renegades XI: Aaron Finch (c), Shaun Marsh, Sam Harper (wk), Rilee Rossouw, Mackenzie Harvey, Mohammad Nabi, Imad Wasim, Will Sutherland, Kane Richardson, Mitch Perry, Peter Hatzoglou

Sydney Thunder XI: Alex Hales, Usman Khawaja, Callum Ferguson (c), Sam Billings (wk), Oliver Davies, Ben Cutting, Daniel Sams, Chris Green, Nathan McAndrew, Chris Tremain, Tanveer Sangha