Sixers down woeful Stars in BBL|11 opener

A woeful batting display from an undermanned Melbourne Stars has handed the Sydney Sixers the dream start to their BBL title defence with a record victory in the season opener at the SCG.

After the Sixers' high-powered batting unit destroyed an inexperienced Stars bowling attack to post their highest ever KFC BBL score, the visitors capitulated with the bat to be bowled out for 61 in the 12th over.

It was the BBL's largest ever winning margin with the 152-run victory eclipsing the previous record of 145 by the Sixers over the Melbourne Renegades in Hobart last summer.

Just two Stars batters – Peter Nevill (18) and Hilton Cartwright (10) – made it into double figures as skipper Glenn Maxwell and English import Joe Clarke failed to fire.

Meanwhile, the back-to-back champions' big three – Josh Philippe, James Vince and Moises Henriques – all got going at the top of the order after being asked to bat first by Maxwell on Sunday night.

Already missing batter Joe Burns, bowlers Nathan Coulter-Nile and Billy Stanlake, and keeper-batter Seb Gotch, the Stars were dealt another injury blow when one of Australia's T20 World Cup heroes, Marcus Stoinis, was ruled out with a side strain just before the match.

It meant Sam Elliott – the son of former Test opener Matthew Elliott – was handed the new ball alongside fellow debutants Brody Couch and Pakistan mystery spinner Syed Faridoun.

It was a measured start from Philippe and Vince as they progressed to 0-9 from the first two overs – but when Philippe hit Elliott for four through backward point off the 15th ball of the innings the floodgates opened.

Philippe and Vince took that third over for 12 runs before the English right-hander unleashed in Sam Rainbird's next over, striking three boundaries behind square on the leg-side as the Sixers motored along to 1-92 at the halfway point of the innings.

When Vince departed for 44 off 29 balls, Sixers' captain Henriques kept the momentum going with a rapid 76 not out off 38 balls (with a strike rate of 200) to power his side to the highest ever total of 4-213, eclipsing their previous best of 4-205 against the Renegades in BBL|10.

It was also the highest BBL total at the SCG with Philippe – the competition's third leading scorer in the previous two tournaments – continuing his rich vein of form with a couple of huge sixes (including one onto the roof of the members stand) to finish with 83 off 47 balls.

The Sixers power hitters got hold of Rainbird, one of the Stars' more experienced bowlers, who finished with 1-59 from his four overs at an economy rate of 14.75.

It was a disastrous start for the Stars in reply as they slumped to 2-4 inside the first over from veteran spinner Steve O'Keefe.

It went from bad to worse when superstar Maxwell tried to deposit Sean Abbott's first ball out of the ground and was clean bowled.

From there the wickets kept tumbling with O'Keefe (4-14) and young allrounder Hayden Kerr both taking consecutive wickets to be on hat-tricks.

Kerr (2-6) was denied the chance to claim his hat-trick as he wasn't brought back for a second over by Henriques. Abbott was the other chief destroyer with 3-14 from three overs.

"(Philippe) and (Vince) just set such a beautiful platform at the top of the batting and made everyone else's job quite easy coming in," Henriques said.

"We didn't have to negotiate any tough situations, it was pretty clear what the plans were, when you lose your first wicket in the ninth over you've pretty much got a licence to get going."

The Stars have a five-day break before their next game against the Sydney Thunder at the SCG on Friday and Maxwell said they would hopefully welcome back the Stoinis, Coulter-Nile, Qais Ahmad, and Burns in a few games time.

"It's wasn't a great night," Maxwell said.

"I thought we actually did really well with an inexperienced bowling line-up. Sammy Elliott in his first game taking the new ball and I thought he showed some great signs, he got the ball to shape at the start, looked like he had great control.

"You've got Josh Philippe in unbelievable form … and James Vince is a world-class performer – a tough initiation for these young guys but it's a great learning curve for them.

"We've had a lot of injuries, a lot of guys yet to turn up.

"It's just put us behind where we would like to be for round one, but you can't win the tournament from round one."

The Sixers next face the Hobart Hurricanes in Launceston on Wednesday.

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