Knight's Thunder exit WBBL with loss to Heat

Brisbane Heat's Amelia Kerr (left) celebrates with team-mates Jess Jonassen (centre) and Georgia Redmayne (right) after taking the wicket of Syndey Thunder's Phoebe Litchfield

Heather Knight's Sydney Thunder are out of the Women's Big Bash League after a 44-run defeat by Brisbane Heat in the Eliminator match at the WACA in Perth.

England captain Knight made 25 in response but Thunder could only reach 125-9 off their 20 overs.

Brisbane will face Perth Scorchers in Wednesday's Challenger, with the winner playing Adelaide Strikers in Saturday's final at the Adelaide Oval.

"Always nice to win these games and give yourself a chance of going through and winning the trophy," said Heat all-rounder Kerr.

"It's exciting, when you come to these competitions you want to get there. It's going to be an exciting match and I'm looking to see what happens."

Batting first, Heat got off to a flying start, reaching 81-1 after nine overs.

Kerr and opener Grace Harris (45) both narrowly fell short of half-centuries, but wickets from Hannah Darlington (3-42) helped restrict the Thunder to 169-8. Lauren Smith and Sammy-Jo Johnson also took two wickets each.

In response, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu continued her impressive WBBL campaign, scoring 41 to make her the WBBL's leading run-scorer (with 552 runs).

Despite a star-studded Thunder batting line-up, top order batters Tahlia Wilson (12), Phoebe Litchfield (3) and Marizanne Kapp (2) all fell cheaply, with Knight and Anika Learoyd (21) the only other positives with the bat for Thunder.

Excellent bowling from Courtney Sippel (3-9) and Nicola Hancock (2-16) helped seal a 44-run win for Heat, seeing them reach the Challenger for a second consecutive year.

There will be radio commentary of both the Challenger and the final on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, BBC Sounds and the BBC Sport website and app.