The Sunshine Coast Scorchers needed three runs to win from the final ball of a shortened Gabba final with Andy Batten cover driving the ball out to the sweeper and scurrying through for two to finish the game as a tie. With the rain starting to threaten there was no time for a super over to sort the winner and the teams were left to share the spoils for the first time in Country Challenge history.
It capped a wonderful fightback for the Central Queensland Seamers after falling to 3/11 in the third over, batting first of a shortened 10 over per side game. Captain, Jeff Case (18* off 20) and Brent Hartley (30 off 22) dug in to give them a target of 67 runs to defend, which few predicted would be enough.
With Eckard and Batticciotto cruising in the early stages of the Scorchers run-chase, It looked as though Sunshine Coast would win their first title, but the Seamers had other ideas. Central Queensland fought back into the game with some quick wickets and when rain intervened in the seventh over, the Scorchers were one run ahead of their par score required for the DLS. Terrific work by the ground staff meant that there were 8 balls remaining with a revised target for the Scorchers to score 11 runs. The rest is history.
Brent Hartley was awarded the Player of the Final award for top scoring with 30 (22) and claiming the crucial wicket of Scorchers captain Jarrod Officer.
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