Bowlers, Clarke help maintain Melbourne Stars' winning run

Haris Rauf picked three wickets while the trio of Mitchell Swepson, Tom Curran and Marcus Stoinis bagged two each to tie down Sydney Thunder to just 128. Joe Clarke then ensured the chase was breezy as he smashed a 37-ball 60. Stars romped home to a nine wicket victory with six overs to spare.

Sam Konstas and Matthew Gilkes started brightly for Thunder with a 33-run opening stand. As the innings transpired, that was the best partnership for Thunder as Rauf & Co. repeatedly made incisions. Rauf was first to do it, with the wicket of Gilkes in the fourth over. Thunder lost Konstas too in the PowerPlay, cleaned up by Swepson. Stoinis, Swepson and Rauf made three more dents in the middle overs,reducing the Thunder to 90 for 5.

Shadab Khan (25 off 24) and Chris Green (12 off 11) dragged the team past 100 but the bowlers didn't lift their foot off the pedal. Thunder lost half their side in the death for the addition of 29 runs, leaving the in-form Stars with a gettable target to chase.

Clarke made further mincemeat of an already paltry target in front of him. The Stars scored nearly half the target in the PowerPlay, with Clarke smashed 49 of the 61 runs. This included a 20-run fourth over from Daniel Sams. By the time Chris Green stopped Clarke in his tracks in the 10th over, Stars already had 86 on board.

Glenn Maxwell ensured the wicket didn't change the obvious course of the fixture. He walked out and slammed a 104m six off Sams and then went after Shadab Khan. He then hastened the chase by smashing two fours and a six off Tanveer Sangha, wrapping up the chase with a big hit that got him to an undefeated 39 off just 20 deliveries.

Brief Scores: Sydney Thunder 128 in 20 overs (Shadab Khan 25, Matthew Gilkes 24; Haris Rauf 3-29, Mitchell Swepson 2-18, Tom Curran 2-22, Marcus Stoinis 2-25) lost to Melbourne Stars 132/1 in 14 overs (Joe Clarke 60, Glenn Maxwell 39*) by 9 wickets