Stars fate in their own hands after 'nerve wracking' resurgence

At the start of the new year, Melbourne Stars were less than a 4 per cent chance of qualifying for the KFC BBL|14 finals.

Now, after Brisbane Heat's final over loss last night, the Stars' fate is remarkably back in their own hands.

After four straight wins to surge back into contention, the equation is simple for Marcus Stoinis' side: beat Hobart Hurricanes on Sunday at the MCG and they're in.

And they'd enter the finals as the form side, undefeated in 2025 with five wins on the bounce – their longest streak since they last qualified for the playoffs in BBL|09 when they won eight in a row.

"It feels weird, we've been ahead of everyone in games and just playing our own little race," Stars fast bowler Peter Siddle said.

"Being in the position we are, we've had to watch all these other games in a bit of excitement actually.

"There's been a couple of tight ones, so it's been a bit nerve wracking for us, but the teams we needed to win have got the job done for us."

The turnaround has been led by a couple of outrageous Glenn Maxwell innings, but a dramatic improvement in their ability to take wickets with the new ball and at the death has also been crucial to getting their campaign back on track.

Siddle has led the charge with 11 wickets while operating at a superb economy rate of 7.06 and is the club's joint leading wicket-taker alongside Mark Steketee, who came into the team on January 1 against Brisbane Heat and has played in all the Stars four wins this season.

Steketee has taken the new ball in his four appearances so far in BBL|14 and claimed wickets in every match, including a career-best 5-17 against Melbourne Renegades and 3-14 against Sydney Sixers in their past two matches.

Since January 1, the Stars strike rate with the ball has dropped to 15.5, meaning they're taking wickets on average 10 balls more frequently than their first five games of the season where their strike rate was 25.5.

They've taken seven wickets in the Powerplay in their past four games, compared to just three in their opening five, helping reduce their economy rate in the first four overs of their bowling innings from 7.45 to 4.5 runs per over.

That's had a knock-on effect in the death overs (16-20) where they've been further into their opponent's batting order which has in turn led to more wicket-taking opportunities in the closing stages of the innings.

The Stars have taken 11 death wickets since the start of 2025, up from six in their first five games, allowing them to slow their opponent's scoring rate in overs 16-20 from 10.43 per over to 8.12.

Taking wickets is well known as the best form of defence in T20 cricket and it's proved the case during the Stars resurgence in BBL|14 with 42 per cent of their deliveries bowled since January 1 dot balls, up from 34.2 per cent.

While Siddle told The Surge Podcast their "New Year's resolution was to try and win one game", he believes there were signs during the opening five games they were on the right path.

"If you break down the matches, we were right in definitely three and potentially four of those games and only marginally lose them," Siddle said.

"It's not like we were far off; it was just about picking key moments throughout games where we needed to stand up, or someone needed to stand up and grab the game and we just couldn't do it.

"It was just finding those key areas and identifying them sooner and turning it around.

"Since then, we've had individuals with the bat stand up and make big scores to get us into good positions.

"And similar with the ball, we've been and lot more consistent, we're a lot more settled, we've been able to execute better and we've been able to take more wickets, which in T20 cricket helps a lot."

So after seeing their probability of reaching the top four drop as low as 3.2 per cent, the Stars enter Sunday's last match of the home-and-away season a realistic chance of qualifying for the BBL finals for the first time in five seasons.

"It probably wasn't until we won two or three that we started to believe and to win that last one (against the Renegades) puts us in the position we are now," Siddle said.

"Obviously, we still need to win the last one to make it, but we've given ourselves the best chance – the Hurricanes are on a roll but they have to lose at some stage, so hopefully it's against us."

KFC BBL|14 standings

Team	Matches played M	Wins W	Losses L	Ties T	No results N/R	Net Run Rate NRR	Deductions Ded.	Total points PTS
1 Hobart Hurricanes Men HUR	9	7	1	0	1	0.135	0	15
2 Sydney Sixers Men SIX	9	6	2	0	1	0.156	0	13
3 Sydney Thunder Men THU	9	5	3	0	1	0.34	0	11
4 Melbourne Stars Men STA	9	4	5	0	0	-0.073	0	8
5 Brisbane Heat Men HEA	9	3	5	0	1	-0.794	0	7
6 Adelaide Strikers Men STR	9	3	6	0	0	0.067	0	6
7 Perth Scorchers Men SCO	9	3	6	0	0	0.057	0	6
8 Melbourne Renegades Men REN	9	3	6	0	0	0.033	0	6

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Wins

L: Losses

T: Ties

N/R: No results

NRR: Net Run Rate

Ded.: Deductions

PTS: Total points