BRING ON THE HEAT

I’m ready to be a matchwinner, says Cane quick

MISFIRING Hurricanes quick Tymal Mills is confident his best is just around the corner and believes he can be the matchwinner Hobart wants in the back half of the tournament.

Mills nearly blew the Hurricanes’ third straight win on Monday night when, needing 18 off the final three balls, the Sixers’ Sam Billings hit consecutive sixes but missed out on the last delivery to give Hobart a much needed five-run victory.

The big left-arm quick has four wickets in five games and is going at almost 10 runs an over.

However, after a long lay-off through injury, Mills believes his best is yet to come going into tonight’s game against the Heat in Brisbane.

“I don’t think I’m far away,” Mills said yesterday.

“Last night was probably the best that I’ve felt.

“Unfortunately in that last over I still went for a few runs, but in just terms of my feeling and run-up, I did quite a lot of run-up work with ‘Griff’ [assistant coach Adam Griffith] the day before the game at training.

“I definitely felt the best I’ve felt all tournament, which is nice for me.

“I had struggled with my rhythm having not played for five months leading into this tournament. “I don’t feel like I’m far away. “Hopefully the games to come in the second half of this tournament I can really show up and put in some matchwinning performances for the team.”

Hobart sits one win behind the Heat, which has played an extra game, and Brisbane will also be without destructive batsman Chris Lynn because of a calf injury.

“That is nice as a bowler as it puts a bit more pressure on their other batters,” Mills said.

“Obviously they’ve got Brendon [McCullum] who is high-class himself.

“For us [it’s] just that little bit less pressure just in terms of when you are bowling knowing they’ve got one of their best batters out.

“The pressure is straight away going back to their other batters, so hopefully we can make that count tomorrow night.”

After two heavy losses to start, the Hurricanes have bounced back with three straight wins as momentum and confidence builds.

“We’ve found a nice little formula with how we are going about things at the moment,” Mills said.

“Guys are batting really well, which is nice. A lot of guys are scoring runs at different stages of the innings, guys are being flexible and being able to bat at different times, which is really good.

“With the ball we still have a lot of potential to get better, which is exciting for us and hopefully it can only mean good things moving forward.”

The Hurricanes have kept an unchanged squad for the game.