Hughes 'unlikely' for final, Edwards out of tournament

Sydney Sixers batter Daniel Hughes has been all but ruled out of Wednesday night's Challenger final and faces an uphill battle to be fit for the KFC BBL|11 decider on Friday, while Jack and Mickey Edwards will miss the rest of the tournament after testing positive to COVID-19.

Hughes has today been diagnosed with a grade 2-3 high left ankle sprain after tripping on the boundary rope while practicing fielding during the warm-up before last night's loss to the Perth Scorchers.

The left-hander rolled his ankle while taking a high catch and was replaced in the selected XI by debutant Nick Bertus just 15 minutes before the first ball.

The Sixers said their No. 3 batter is "highly unlikely" to play at the SCG on Wednesday but would do everything he could to play in the final two nights later, if they win and go through.

The 32-year-old had found some form during the second half of the tournament with scores of 50, 66 and 59 since Christmas.

The two-time defending champions also confirmed both Edwards brothers have returned positive COVID-19 test results and would miss the rest of the tournament.

Opening batter Jack Edwards was forced out of last night's clash and into isolation after his brother Mickey, who was also in the Sixers squad, returned an "inconclusive" COVID-19 test result that was revealed just 30 minutes before the bat flip.

The Sixers said on Sunday that no other players had tested positive to the virus.

The Sixers will remain in Melbourne until tomorrow when they will take a charter flight to Sydney with the winner of tonight's Knockout final at the MCG.

Sixers captain Moises Henriques, meanwhile, has refused to blame the 75 minutes of chaos that saw both Edwards boys and Hughes ruled out of last night’s match just moments before the game was due to start.

"Not at all, we just we played a bad game of cricket," he told cricket.com.au.

"We had a very similar team to what we've had over the last few games so there wasn't really that much disruption in terms of the team make-up.

"Obviously, Daniel Hughes going down in the warm-up wasn't ideal and we had a few guys go down with COVID today, but Silky (Jordan Silk) coming back into the team equalled out the loss of Jack.

"I still believe we had the team to go out there and win the game if we played well. We'll look back, watch that over again and see maybe where we got it wrong, either execution wise or even strategically."

The 48-run loss was the Sixers third defeat at the hands of the Scorchers in KFC BBL|11, the team they beat to claim last year's BBL|10 crown.

"Everyone saw what happened (to Hughes). We just spoke about what the adjustments were (before the game), who would bat where and what that meant in terms of the team make-up, but that was basically it," Henriques said.

"It's really unfortunate for Daniel but we had to crack on and play a game of cricket. We tried to do our best with what we've got, and we just weren't good enough tonight, unfortunately."

The Sixers will now play the winner of tonight's Thunder and Strikers clash at the SCG on Wednesday for another chance to reach the decider.

"It will be good for our boys to get back home for a few days and get a home final, (we) would have loved the home final to be the big one, but that's OK," Henriques said.