Panthers under pressure

By Justin Robertson
ON THE eve of the Premier Cricket finals series, Dandenong Panthers prized recruit Alex Hales has left the club and gone back to England to deal with a family situation.
Hales announced his decision to team-mates at the club on Monday night.
Panthers skipper Darren Dempsey said it was yet another body blow – on top of their long list of injured bowlers – to their premiership aspirations.
“It’s another disappointment for us,” he said. He’s a big loss but he felt like he needed to be home so he’s gone back.”
Hales finished his season with 482 runs at an average of 32.1, but did not add to his tally of runs against first-placed Carlton over the weekend during their four-wicket loss at Shepley Oval.
Batting first, the Panthers got off to a shaky start at 2/18 when Hales was run out for a duck. A 52-run partnership between Dempsey (18) and opening bat Tom Donnell (61) steadied the ship and took the score to 2/72, but the Panthers never got going with wickets falling at regular intervals, losing their last eight wickets for 100 runs.
A late flurry by Victorian speedster, James Pattinson (45) gave the Panthers a reasonable score of 170, but Dempsey said he felt his side fell 100 runs short of a competitive target.
“We needed more than that, we didn’t bat well enough and that’s been the problem more so lately,” he said. “Particularly with a few of our bowlers down we need to win the games with out batting and 170 was never going to be enough.”
The depleted Panthers bowling attack led by Justin Butterfield (2/47) and Donnell (2/22) toiled against the Blues, as did Brett Fairbanks with a tight 0/34 from 17 overs on a lifeless Shepley track and were unable grab the six points. It’s a must win game this week against Camberwell and the equation is simple: win and they play finals lose and they watch from the sidelines.
“It would have been nice not to let it get to this stage, but at least it’s in our own hands,” Dempsey said.
Darren Pattinson made a solid 60 in the second XI last week and will be promoted this week as a batsman.
Dempsey said, even though their season was on the line for the final round, his focus was all about winning against Camberwell.
“I’m not really thinking about finals to be honest, we need to play exceptionally well to get there and we are going to have to win with not our strongest team, so its going to require a special effort from somebody,” he said.
“It’ll be extremely disappointing to miss the finals though after being in the top two all season, so it’s a big game this week.