Big Bash League: Captain Ashton Turner adamant Perth Scorchers can pull off another extraordinary BBL comeback

It’s the Scorchers like you’ve seen them so many times before — with their backs against the wall at the end of the Big Bash League. And captain Ashton Turner is adamant they have what it takes to pull off something extraordinary again. Perth are fifth, one point behind Brisbane Heat and three behind Hobart Hurricanes and Sydney Thunder. They have three games left, including a double-header on the road in Sydney, to climb up the ladder and seal their place in a fifth-consecutive finals series. The Scorchers have lost four games. They went down to Hobart and Melbourne Renegades on the road earlier in the season and then lost back-to-back home blockbusters where they were ahead of the match but let it slip. Their defeat to the Renegades on Tuesday night left them red-faced and frustrated. Across the next week and a bit, the magnets on their whiteboard are going to be thrown in the air by national selectors. It’s crucial they can shuffle them into the right spots quickly. Mitch Marsh is resting at home and will miss Saturday’s clash with the Sixers and Tuesday night’s date with the Thunder. Cooper Connolly is bound for Sri Lanka and is now in doubt for their final match, against Adelaide Strikers at home on January 18. Josh Inglis will only recover from injury in time to head on that Test tour and the programs of injury-prone trio Aaron Hardie, Jhye Richardson and Lance Morris are managed by Cricket Australia. But it doesn’t faze Turner, the man who lifted the trophy three seasons ago at the end of a season where COVID-inflicted teammates were dropping like flies before almost every game. “We’ve done it before. I rewind quickly to COVID years where the team was changing 10 minutes before the toss, guys were going down left, right and centre and we proved that we could be versatile, we proved we could be adaptable and it’s a little bit of a similar sentiment this year,” Turner said. “We have had guys coming and going, but no doubt there is a lot of confidence within the group, albeit our performances haven’t been where we expect them to be. “We feel a lot of confidence we have got the right group assembled, our best cricket is ahead of us and we are looking forward to playing some big games and hopefully having a crack deep into the tournament. “We prepare for a lot of different situations, we have got contingency plans A, B, C down to Z.” He is adamant the Scorchers’ best cricket is still ahead of them ahead of showdowns with the Sixers, who are the best team in the competition, and the breakout Thunder. “We haven’t performed as we expect ourselves to, we have high expectations, we still feel like we are a team that can go really deep and win this competition,” Turner said. “We have a great opportunity ahead of us in Sydney, we play a couple of games over there against two sides that are going really well, but we want to win this competition, we have got to beat the best sides. “We have left ourselves in the situation where we have to play good cricket and win games and we are excited for that opportunity.” Turner said he feels like the Scorchers have got “all bases covered” but admitted the make-up of their side is going to change from game to game. They will weigh up picking two spinners on a Sydney Cricket Ground wicket renowned for being a turner, but will wait until they see the surface on Friday before they make that call. It could mean leg-spinning all-rounder Matthew Spoors plays one or both of their matches on the road, while Mahli Beardman is also on the trip and a chance to debut. They could unleash the exciting paceman across the next two matches. A lot will also depend on the bowling availability of Hardie, who was tipped to be fit enough to bowl in early January before he tweaked his abdomen. Hardie has been building his bowling loads at training in recent weeks and even warmed up with the ball before the Renegades match on Tuesday. The Scorchers have already had three different players open the batting — Keaton Jennings, Matthew Hurst and Hardie — alongside New Zealand international Finn Allen. It is part of their game they are keen to nail down in the crunch final week of the home-and-away season. “We want stability, we want continuity, that’s across list management, that includes the draft, that includes gameday batting order, bowling positions,” he said. “At times it’s easier said than done and we have had guys coming and going, we have had a few injuries, forced changes. “There is no doubt continuity is the goal. It is like the holy grail, if we had it our way we would have 11 players play every game throughout the season, but that’s not the case.” Death bowling has been the Scorchers’ bread and butter for almost the entire history of the competition and has been nearly-flawless under Turner’s captaincy. But that has not been the case this season. “It’s really frustrating. We know we haven’t played our best cricket, the positive is we were in both of those games, had opportunities to win them and they were really close, exciting games. “We have become accustomed to being on the right side of the ledger in games like that over an extended period of time, so no doubt it’s disappointing, frustrating to not take any points out of those two games, but the positive is we know that our best cricket is ahead of us. “We haven’t executed across a number of disciplines, we could have been better in the field, we want more runs from our top order, we want to execute better at the death with the ball. “These are fine margins that we haven’t executed well enough in the last couple of days in particular.”