Fire, Breakers stars ready for rematch

Queensland will come up against a New South Wales team eager for revenge as they attempt to win their first Women’s National Cricket League title on Saturday.

The Queensland Fire squad will go into the match at North Sydney Oval full of confidence after the majority of their 13-player squad were part of the Brisbane Heat’s Rebel WBBL victory two weeks ago.

But standing in their way will be a NSW Breakers side made up of Sydney Sixers and Thunder players still licking their wounds after losing to the Heat in the WBBL final and semi-final respectively.

“You talk a lot in sport about knowing how to win and it took our group a really long time to work out how to do that,” Queensland captain Kirby Short said on Friday.

“What characterised our Big Bash season is we won a lot more close games than we lost and we used to do it the other way around.

“For us it’s nice to have that belief in the group, and having the coherence of almost the whole team rolling from the Big Bash into the WNCL final is powerful.”

NSW are aiming to win an incredible 20th title from 23 seasons of the domestic 50-over competition - having appeared in every final along the way - and maintaining that legacy is driving the Breakers, according to captain Alyssa Healy.

Healy is leading the Breakers in a final for the first time, having taken over the captaincy this season following the retirement of Alex Blackwell.

“We’re really excited for tomorrow, it’s a big challenge maintaining that legacy that we have in this format,” Healy said.

“It’s something that’s getting harder and harder every year, so to win our 20^th title tomorrow will be a battle and it’s something every single member of the squad is looking forward to.

“Every time we get that favourites tag, although mind you four or five teams could have made this WNCL final, but the pressure comes from within ourselves to not be the side to let the legacy down.”

Queensland will also draw confidence from the narrow win they recorded over the Breakers during the first round of the WNCL in September.

Having restricted their more-fancied opponents to 149, the Fire fell to 6-18 early in their reply before a match-winning partnership between Sammy Jo-Johnson and Josie Dooley saw them sneak home with one wicket to spare.

But they’ll go into the decider without in-form allrounder Grace Harris, who has been sidelined due to a knee injury she picked up in the WBBL final.

Meanwhile NSW have received a boost for the match with Australian allrounder Ashleigh Gardner returning after she was a late withdrawal last weekend.

Gardner was withdrawn as a precaution just before the start of NSW’s match against ACT last Saturday after suffering mild concussion during warm-ups.