Heat and Hurricanes heading for the Coast!

Mostly sunny with a 100% chance of Heat and Hurricanes – that’s the forecast for the Sunshine Coast this weekend, as Big Bash League cricket roars into our region for the first time.

The Brisbane Heat and Hobart Hurricanes will slug it out in two pre-season BBL matches on Saturday and Sunday at the Elizabeth Daniels Sports Complex.

The matches will bring some of the biggest names in cricket to the region, including Heat stars Brendan McCullum, Chris Lynn, Joe Burns and Ben Cutting as well as George Bailey and Shaun Tait for the Hurricanes.

Mayor Mark Jamieson said the matches were free community events and the response had been overwhelming.

“Both games are officially ‘sold-out’ with locals snapping up the free tickets well ahead of time and once again this really highlights what a strong and supportive community we are of major sporting events,” Mayor Jamieson said.

“Although this is a free community event, everyone who has a ticket to the weekend’s matches needs to take that ticket to the front gate to get into the ground.

"There will be no tickets available on the day.

“The Sunshine Coast has already played host to more than 60 major sporting and lifestyle events in 2016, including the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships and the Aussie Surf Titles.

"So to have 7,000 tickets gone in a flash to these two BBL matches is another wonderful show of support from our region and it reinforces our reputation as Australia’s regional capital for major events.

“On behalf our community I’d once again like to thank Cricket Australia for entering into a partnership with council that will bring exciting cricket content like this weekend’s BBL games and the Under 17 National Championships here for the next two years.

“Together, we’re focussed on building the region into a hub for pathway and domestic first-class cricket and also providing our local community with some tremendous entertainment.

“The Brisbane Heat is the eighth largest sporting brand on Australian social media with well over half a million followers across Facebook and Twitter alone.

"Having them come to the Sunshine Coast along with the Hobart Hurricanes, who also have more than 400,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter, will provide enormous potential exposure for our region.”

Hurricanes head coach Damien Wright said the team was looking forward to putting on a show for Sunshine Coast supporters.

“We are really excited to be coming up to the Sunshine Coast and playing a couple of high quality practice matches," he said.

“It’s great that the cricket fans on the Sunshine Coast get to experience a bit of the Big Bash and I’m sure they will be entertained with what they see from both teams.”