Scorchers urge BBL to lock in home finals

Perth Scorchers skipper Ashton Turner has urged Cricket Australia to do everything it can to ensure the top-ranked teams in the KFC BBL finals are rewarded with matches at their home grounds.

Big Bash officials are yet to announce where this season's finals series will be played and are expected to wait until as late as possible to base their decisions on the most up-to-date information about community transmission of COVID19 and state border closures.

While acknowledging the ongoing complications created by the pandemic that has forced multiple games to be played at neutral venues this season, Turner says every effort should be made to hold a traditional finals series at venues around the country provided "there's no big obstacles".

Turner's Scorchers side, who moved to the top of the table with a win over the Melbourne Stars on Saturday night, are already guaranteed to earn at least one 'home' final under the five-team play-off system, which will run from January 29 to February 6.

The Scorchers have arguably the biggest home ground advantage this summer of all teams in the competition; Western Australia's success in stopping the coronavirus means the Scorchers can have 30,000 fans at Optus Stadium, and they were unbeaten in four games at home in front of raucous home fans earlier this month.

"We know that there's extenuating circumstances this year and we understand that," Turner said. "But if there's no big obstacles, we'd love to be playing in Perth.

"There's still a game to go and we don't know where we're going to finish on the table. But should the opportunity arise for us to host, we'd love to be in Perth.

"We're allowed 30,000 fans at what I think is the best ground in Australia. We love playing there, it suits our batting line-up and it suits our bowlers with the pace and bounce of the stadium.

"But we like to think our game is adaptable and we're now winning games on the east coast as well. We think we can play good cricket anywhere.

"We know that we're really fortunate to be playing any cricket at the moment and every player in the country knows that they have to make some sacrifices for this tournament to go ahead.

"It's great to be playing in front of crowds at all and ideally, we'd love to be playing in Perth in front of a home crowd if we earn the right."

While WA's border to several states remains closed despite there currently being extremely low numbers of community transmission in Australia, holding this season's tournament in a bio-secure hub where players and officials are restricted in their movements has allowed CA to secure government exemptions during the summer for the tournament to continue as scheduled.

The Renegades, Sixers and Thunder were all given clearance to play games in Perth under strict quarantine conditions, including getting a police escort to and from the venue, despite having come from states the WA government had retrospectively closed their border to.

For the Stars, meanwhile, exactly where the finals will be played is the least of their concerns after Saturday night's defeat left them in danger of missing out on a top-five spot altogether.

Runners-up in the past two seasons and one of the pre-tournament favourites, the Stars need to beat the ladder-leading Sydney Sixers on Tuesday night and hope other results go their way to have any chance of qualifying for the knockout stage.

"I hope the boys are hurting because all our fans are hurting and I'm hurting as well," a disappointed Stars coach David Hussey said.

"It's flat, pretty quiet and pretty eerie (in the rooms). A few people are disappointed with their own performances.

"We're in a desperate state now where we're relying on other teams to win. We have to win our last game or we're out of the competition and for such a proud club, that would be a very disappointing result.

"With the squad that we have too, that would be exceptionally disappointing."