Panthers opening bat Tom Donnell made 42 against Frankston-Peninsula on the weekend.
By Justin Robertson
DANDENONG Panthers couldn’t get over the line and lost a thriller by one run against Frankston-Peninsula in the final Twenty20 match before the mid-season break.
Chasing 145 for the win, the Panthers rocketed to 23 from the first over thanks to the blazing bat of Alex Hales, but were bogged down during the middle overs and needed 24 from 12 balls at the death.
They scored more than 20 runs but fell a couple of runs short from claiming the four points, which Dempsey said ended a disappointing fortnight of cricket.
“That loss was just icing on the cake really,” he said, as the Panthers have now lost their past three T20 games in a row.
“We just haven’t been able to play the cricket we’ve wanted to – for whatever reason – and that’s been really frustrating for us.”
Dempsey said the Panthers only needed five runs per over for the best part of 12 overs, but seemed to dawdle through parts of the run chase and gave away too many dot balls.
“You just can’t afford to give dot balls away in T20 games, it’s as simply as that,” he said. “Our run rate went from five to seven to 12 – it should never have got to that stage where we needed that much per over.”
Opening bat Tom Donnell continued his good form, crafting a valuable 42 (40) while Alex Hales annihilated 41 (16) in just 15 minutes. His first over consisted of: four, four, four, six, four, single.
“It was as good an over as you could have – filled with great cricket shots,” Dempsey said. “From there, we should have never have lost because the run rate was manageable from that point onwards.”
Reflecting on the loss, Dempsey conceded the Panthers didn’t field or bowl as well as they could have during Frankston-Peninsula’s innings.
“At the end of the game when you analyse it and lose by one run, you look at areas where we could have saved that extra run and there were heaps – overthrows, misfields, drop catches,” Dempsey said. “They did all those things much better than we did.”
The skipper Dempsey bowled tidily (2/18) along with Donnell (1/19) on slow low wicket and were the pick of Dandenong’s bowlers.
Dempsey said Victorian quick James Pattinson “bowled OK” (1/30), but would like to see more wickets from his bowling trump card.
The good news for the Panthers is that all of the top four teams suffered losses over the weekend meaning they still hold spot and will until cricket resumes on 8 January.
The Panthers will play Northcote in the first round back next year in the final T20 game of the season and Dempsey said he’ll be looking for a much better performance from his chargers.
“As it stands, we are still on top and hopefully grab those four points the first week back,” he said. “But bottom line, we need to start winning again to give us from heading into the two-dayers.”
