BRISBANE Heat have survived the WBBL09 Eliminator and move on to tonight’s Challenger after they defeated the Sydney Thunder by 44 runs last night.

Brisbane batted first and made a very competitive 8/169, before it restricted the Thunder to only 9/125.

Much of the Heat’s total and drive came from the opening partnership, where Grace Harris and Georgia Redmayne raced to 58 in 38 balls before Harris was dismissed. There were a couple of other solid partnerships (a 24-run second wicket and 38-run fourth wicket) that helped accelerate things further.

The Thunder cannot even blame particularly bad bowling for the high score, with only six extras conceded. However five of them were wides. It was actually Amelia Kerr who top scored for the Heat with 48, while Harris made 45.

Meanwhile for the Thunder, Hannah Darlington was chief destroyer with the ball, taking three wickets, while Sammy-Jo Johnson and Lauren Smith each took two wickets. Also, although Samantha Bates only took one wicket that one wicket took her to 100 WBBL wickets, becoming the first Thunder player to reach the milestone.

The Thunder also made a solid but not as quick start to their innings, but once the wickets started to fall the floodgates then really opened. The opening partnership for the Thunder was 40 runs and the fifth wicket partnership was 31, but apart from them the next best partnership was 12 runs.

As she often has this season it was Chamari Athapaththu who top scored for the Thunder, making 41.

On the flipside Courtney Sippel again had another great game with ball in hand for the Heat, taking three wickets. Nicola Hancock also got in on the wickets, picking up two.

Brisbane’s win sees the Heat move on to tonight’s Challenger where they face the Perth Scorchers, while the Thunder head home as their season is over.