'Hard to watch': Thunder star cops brutal blow as Heat bowler reacts ...

Thunder bowler Spencer Johnson made sure Alex Hales was okay and then smirked after the Heat batsman collapsed in agony after copping one right in the family jewels.

“Watch the smirk, though,” Brendon Julian said on Fox Cricket.

Julian watched a replay of the incident and added: “It’s hard to watch.”

MATCH CENTRE: Heat v Thunders, scorecard, teams, highlights

The Heat were absolutely cruising at 1/107 only to be bowled out by the Thunder in the final over for 172 runs. The Thunder are 1/81 off 10 overs.

Brisbane lost 7/16 in the final 18 balls of their innings as Daniel Sams became the first Thunder player to take five wickets.

The bumper crowd at The Gabba, with more than 25,000 expected through the gates, was left shell-shocked as their team collapsed.

The Heat won the bat flip and elected to bat but they lost big hitter Colin Munro in the first over for a golden duck.

Brisbane’s leading run-scorer this season holed out when he skied a delivery from Gurinder Sandhu down the throat of Sams at deep mid-wicket.

But the hosts recovered to sit at 3-136 after 15 overs before the shocking collapse.

The average winning total at The Gabba is 188 runs.

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MATCH PREVIEW

Brisbane are undefeated through four games (three wins and one washout) with big hitter Colin Munro and spinner Mitchell Swepson leading the charge.

The Thunder posted their first win of the season in their last start when they chased down the Melbourne Stars’ 172 with 10 balls to spare.

Cameron Bancroft been the Thunder’s best batsman this summer while Tanveer Sangha has been the pick of the bowlers.

But they’ve already lost to the Heat this season when the Sydney outfit failed to chase down 7-151 in their season opener.

TEAMS

Brisbane Heat: Josh Brown, Colin Munro (c), Nathan McSweeney, Matthew Renshaw, Sam Billings (wk), Paul Walter, Michael Neser, Xavier Bartlett, Spencer Johnson, Mitch Swepson, Matthew Kuhnemann

Sydney Thunder: Alex Hales, Cameron Bancroft (wk), Jason Sangha, Ollie Davies, Alex Ross, Daniel Sams, Nathan McAndrew, Chris Green (c), Gurinder Sandhu, Zaman Khan, Tanveer Sangha