“Everyone here probably doesn’t know what’s going on either. It was amazing. I thought they bowled really, really well considering what the wicket was doing and we just thought if we hung in there long enough we’d create chances.
“That’s unbelievable; I’ve never had that in my life, to be honest.”
The Strikers themselves didn’t get off to the greatest start with the bat and found themselves 24-2 inside four overs. However, a 66-run partnership between Chris Lynn and Colin de Grandhomme put them back on track to post a defendable score.
Finishing up on 139-9 from their allotted overs, Thornton said the team were able 20 runs short of where they thought they would need to be to defend their total.
“We tried to get to 150-plus. We thought if we could get over 150 we’d be really close, but we’d have to bowl well.
“We just thought if we bowled to the top of the stumps and we were clear in what we wanted to execute then we’d be in the game.”
It didn’t take long for the Strikers to make headway into defending their total, with the Thunder losing three wickets in their first 10 deliveries, before falling six down at the start of the fourth over.
Thornton did the majority of the damage with his five wickets, while Wes Agar finished with figures of 4-6 and Matt Short picked up 1-5.
“I feel like I need to retire now,” Thornton said. “I don’t think I’m getting better than that. Honestly, that was an amazing game of cricket.”
Sydney Thunder scorecard
Alex Hales 0 (2) - c Harry Neilsen (wk) b Wes Agar
Matthew Gilkes 0 (2) - c Adam Hose b Matt Short
Rilee Rossouw 3 (5) - c Short b Henry Thornton
Jason Sangha 0 (2) - c Neilsen b Thornton
Alex Ross 2 (4) - c Neilsen b Thornton
Daniel Sams 1 (3) - b Agar
Oliver Davies 1 (4) - c Neilsen b Thornton
Chris Green 0 (6) - c Neilsen b Agar
Gurinder Sandhu 0 (3) - c Short b Agar
Brendan Doggett 4 (2) - c Thomas Kelly b Thornton
Fazalhaq Farooqi 1 (2) - not out
Total: 15 after 5.5 overs.
