Sydney Sixers stalwarts Sean Abbott, Moises Henriques and Jordan Silk have starred as their side moved to the top of the BBL ladder with a seven-wicket win over Sydney Thunder.

Paceman Abbott spearheaded a strong Sixers bowling effort on Sunday as they restricted Thunder to 8-133 in their Sydney Smash derby at Sydney Showground Stadium.

Sixers slumped to 3-25 after four overs, but middle-order linchpins Silk and Henriques took control with an unbroken fourth wicket stand of 109 off 75 balls.

Silk (59 off 42) and Henriques (53 off 38) displayed their experience, working the ball into gaps for singles and hitting the occasional boundary when the Thunder bowlers erred.

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It was Silk’s first BBL 50 of the season and Henriques’ biggest score in this season’s campaign.

The win, achieved with 3.4 overs left, lifted the Sixers above the Scorchers to first, though Perth has two games in hand.

Thunder, which lost for the first time in five games, dropped to fourth on net run-rate below Melbourne Renegades.

Abbott revealed there had been some on-field niggle between the two Sydney teams, with the Sixers not happy they didn’t start the last over of the Thunder innings in time and had to have one less fielder outside the circle.

“Maybe some of their boys trying to make sure our innings runs a bit late,” Abbott told Fox Cricket.

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Both innings started in similar fashion in front of almost 21,000 spectators.

Thunder crashed to 3-12 with three lbw decisions inside the first three overs, as Alex Hales fell for a golden duck.

A fourth-wicket stand of 64 between Alex Ross (34 off 34) and Sam Whiteman (42 off 34) in his first BBL game of the season, revived the Thunder innings.

The Sixers regained the initiative by taking 3-17 but some lusty late innings hitting from Ben Cutting (26 not out from 15 balls) boosted Thunder’s total.

Abbott (3-9 off four overs) bowled 17 dot balls and boosted his haul for the season to 16, joint-second highest along with the Scorchers AJ Tye and the Strikers’ Henry Thornton.

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“There was a bit of a green tinge on the wicket,” Abbott said.

“When your captain gives you the hard ball you’ve got to go out there and there’s no more incentive to go out there and perform well and give your all and set the tone, so that was nice tonight.”

Thunder needed quick wickets and, like the Sixers, struck three times In the power play, with captain and spinner Chris Green (2-29 off four) and pacemen Brendan Doggett (1-23 off four) doing the damage.

Silk and Henriques controlled the game from that point.

“These blokes turn zeros into ones, and twos into threes and seem to find every gap in those pockets that are quite large here,” Abbott said of Silk and Henriques.

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English internationals Hales, Vince and Sixers paceman Chris Jordan were all playing their final game of this season’s BBL.

The Sixers will regain Test stars Steve Smith and Nathan Lyon, while Thunder get back David Warner.

Both Sydney teams play their next game at home to the Scorchers, the Thunder on January 13 and the Sixers two days later.