Sydney and Melbourne have never needed an excuse to bash each other, but there'll be bragging rights up for grabs as well as a cricket trophy after the Melbourne Stars beat the Perth Scorchers on Friday night to set up a Sunday night Big Bash final against Sydney Thunder at the MCG.
This will also be a Hussey versus Hussey final. David, the 38-year-old right-handed younger Hussey will face off for the Stars against Mike, his 40-year-old big brother who will captain the Thunder in his last game of professional cricket.
It will also be a battle of the teams in green -- the Stars in pine needle green versus the Granny Smith Thunder outfit.
And it will be a clash between astronomy and meteorology. Either way, neither team has ever made the final, so we will have a new champion this year.
About eight or nine matches out of 10, bat dominates the ball in Twenty 20 cricket and the team that hits longest, cheers longest. But tonight, it was the Stars' bowlers who engineered victory
Unheralded seamer Dan Worrall was -- you guessed it -- the star for the Stars, with a miserly opening spell. Spinners Adam Zampa and Michael Beer did their usual job of restricting scoring in the mid overs, and then Worrall and evergreen paceman -- what other colour? -- Ben Hilfenhaus tightened the clamp in the final overs.
The Scorchers limped to just 7/139 and while the Stars had a few slow early overs, 35-year-old former England batsman Kevin Pietersen showed why the Stars just signed him for two more years, as he belted 62 off just 36 balls.
Bookies have installed the Stars as slight favourites for Sunday's final, but with the Thunder's in-form batting line-up, no one would be surprised if they caused an upset.
So it's Sydney versus Melbourne on Sunday -- an old battle being fought on a new front. And in the women's BBL final which will be played earlier the same day and televised on Ten, it'll be an all-Sydney affair with the Sixers versus the Thunder.
That's one time you'll be able to say with absolute certainty that Sydney triumphed in Melbourne.