Rashid turns game as Strikers win big-hitting feast

The match in a tweet: Strikers withstand Scorchers' blazing openers to post first points of #BBL09 in run-filled, rain-reduced thriller

The score: Adelaide Strikers 4-198 (Weatherald 83, Carey 55) defeated Perth Scorchers 7-183 (Livingstone 69, Inglis 50, Rashid Khan 3-40) in game reduced to 18 overs per side due to rain.

The big moment: With the Scorchers openers Liam Livingstone and Josh Inglis flying at an extraordinary rate of almost 14 runs per over, Strikers leg spinner Rashid Khan returned to the attack having briefly left the field for treatment on his damaged right hand.

The world's top-ranked T20 bowler had hurt himself in a desperate dive for an outfield catch two overs earlier, but recovered to make the vital breakthrough by removing Livingstone (69 from 26 balls) who was caught at deep mid-on.

Next ball, Rashid got past the blazing bat of Inglis (50 from 27 balls) and rattled his stumps to find himself on a hat-trick and haul his team back into a game that had been slipping away at a rate of knots. The Afghanistan superstar finished his four-over spell, on a pitch built for batters, with 3-40, having gone for 28 runs from the first nine balls he bowled.

The hero: In the 15 KFC Big Bash League matches since his game-defining 115 in the BBL|07 final against Hobart Hurricanes, Jake Weatherald has passed 50 just twice. However, the 25-year-old's recent Marsh Sheffield Shield form has been outstanding, and included scores of 198 and 125.

He is now taking that form into the short-form arena, and was on track for another three-figure score until he ran himself out on 83 scampering back for an ambitious second run on Jhye Richardson's arm. The left-hander clubbed 10 fours and three sweet sixes in his 47-ball innings that was punctuated by a rain break and lifted his team to what seemed an imposing 4-198 in the rain-affected 18-over game.

The supporting cast: Alex Carey emerged from Australia's ultimately unsuccessful World Cup campaign as a shining light, and a reputation as one of the game's most adaptable, reliable middle-order ball strikers. The national men's team ODI vice-captain underscored that standing in a blistering 71-run partnership with Weatherald (from five overs) in which the keeper-batter unfurled some remarkable strokes.

Most memorable among that rove was his pair of consecutive checked cover-drives from the left-arm spin of Ashton Agar that both cleared the fence, before Agar wrought belated revenge by holding a clever, neatly judged catch a hair's breadth from the rope at long-on after Carey had smashed 55 from just 24 balls.

The consolation act: Facing a daunting target of 195 from the 18 overs granted them after an earlier rain delay, the Scorchers made their intentions known from the moment opener Josh Inglis belted new-cap Harry Conway dismissively in front of square leg for four.

For the next eight overs, Inglis and his England-capped opening partner Liam Livingstone threw everything at a shell-shocked Strikers attack that bled boundaries at an eye-watering speed. The height of that bombardment came in the innings' eight over when Australia fast bowler Billy Stanlake was pounded for 23 runs, including three enormous sixes.

Amid that carnage, Inglis should have been run out at the bowlers end having hared the length of the pitch while Livingstone remained in his crease, unsure of where the ball had gone. But Alex Carey's throw at the unguarded bowler's end stumps narrowly missed and the openers resumed their assault.

By the time they were parted, in the ninth over of the chase with Livingstone having reached 50 from just 21 balls, Scorchers had 124 on the board and – at that stage - all the momentum.

The big over: The assault of Scorchers openers Livingstone and Inglis against Billy Stanlake (in which they belted 23 runs from a single over) was stunning, but it came at the height of an already happening run blitz and was, therefore, perhaps a little less totemic than an earlier stanza.

After a sluggish start that left the Strikers 1/5 after two overs, Weatherald decided it was time to launch the counter-attack against left-armer Joel Paris. Bowling the fourth over of the innings, Paris was pummeled for 20 runs by the belligerent opener with the sequence including three boundaries and a six over deep mid-wicket. The only delivery that yielded no runs was a sharp return chance, which Paris failed to hold.

The banter: Interviewed boundary-side shortly after being run out for 83 (off 47 balls), Jake Weatherald was asked whether it surprised him to learn that one of the three sixes he belted had travelled 100 metres.

"It does," the Strikers opener replied, before adding "… but I did go to the gym today".

The brotherly battle: When the Agar boys crossed paths in this year's Marsh One-Day Cup, it was the elder sibling (Ashton) who emerged bloodied from battle, In attempting to complete a catch from younger brother, Wes, the Australia allrounder suffered a gashed nose when the ball slipped from his grasp.

In the return bout, it was once again the younger Agar who triumphed by claiming the wicket of family member-turned-foe, albeit in the unluckiest of circumstances – Ashton was adjudged caught behind down the leg side from the faintest of edges.

The weather: After the abandonment of their previous game against Sydney Thunder in Canberra, due to the suffocating smoke generated by huge bushfires in New South Wales, it seemed the Strikers might this time fall foul of rain.

Having blasted their way to an imposing 1-57 from five overs, the Strikers' charge was stopped by a passing shower that stopped play for 16 minutes and saw the game reduced to 18 overs per side. But rather than stall the home team's progress, it rendered the ball slippery which was particularly a problem for Scorchers spinners Fawad Ahmed and Ashton Agar, and the Strikers top-order found another gear.

The next stop: Perth Scorchers return home for the now traditional Boxing Day evening fixture, this year against the Sydney Sixers, while Adelaide Strikers venture to the Gold Coast for their battle with the undefeated Melbourne Stars at Metricon Stadium the following day (December 27).