By JARROD POTTER
SPRINGVALE SOUTH carved through the Narre Warren (142) order to push into third on the DDCA Turf 1 ladder.
Springvale South v Narre Warren
The Bloods had the runs on the board to make the Magpies’ job seemingly impossible – with 324 runs at its disposal, Springvale South set aggressive fields and kept the pressure up to the Narre bats. That pressure paid early dividends – Tim Ford (4/33) had a field day as he earned four wickets including the prized scalp of Narre skipper Michael Nell (15). With good new ball support from Yoshan Kumara (2/35), the pair burned through the first five Magpies with relative ease before some resistance and backbone was shown by Kaushalya Weeraratne (28), Shane Simpson (20) and the wicketkeeper Ben Swift (36). Their resistance was short-lived as Nathan King (1/45), Ford and Aaron Morrison (2/8) cleaned them up to push the Bloods up the ladder before a challenging clash with Parkfield this round.
Mordialloc v North Dandenong
Mordialloc (184) made North Dandenong (128 and 40) hurt in the worst way imaginable as the visitors failed to notched the 56 runs necessary to avoid an innings defeat. Mordialloc pushed ahead on Saturday afternoon as Leon Kennedy (86) smashed anything that came near him to secure first innings points. North Dandenong would’ve been pleased with keeping Mordialloc under 200, with Crispin Gomez (2/9), Michael De Kauwe (2/36) and Shane Clark (2/36) achieving the best figures.
From there the afternoon turned into a North Dandenong nightmare as 56 became mountainous and impossible to summit. Clark (13) was the leading scorer with the rest of the order failing to reach double figures or even defend their own wicket. Chathura Athukorala (4/13) and Monto Perera (5/12) were impossible to play and ran through the order without any hesitation or resistance. It is North Dandenong’s second outright defeat of the season.
Berwick v Coomoora
Coomoora (6/243) didn’t keel over in response to Berwick’s (6/383) whopping first innings total and will take a lot away from the clash despite the loss. Losing Ollie Ashford (7) and Thanura Halambage (10) early, the Kangaroos steadied through Rahoul Pankhania (83) who was superb in bludgeoning the Bears’ attack about Arch Brown Reserve. Pankhania found solid support through Rob Johnston (19), adding 60 for the third wicket and 50 with captain Paul Hill (43) before his pegs were rearranged by Berwick rising-star spinner Tanner Stanton (1/40). Hill kept on with the chase and had Jake D’Atri (42) join the party with the pair putting together a 67-run partnership before both fell with the score on 219 as Cory Bevan (3/34) picked up the pair consecutively. Lance Baptist (10no) and Jason Bacic (10no) ensured Coomoora would head back to the sheds with wickets in hand and in most circumstances, a match-winning total against their name. Ryan Crawford (2/16) snared a couple of wickets and Jarrod Goodes (0/67) was economical from his 27 overs of hard graft.
Heinz Southern Districts versus Dandenong West, Hallam Kalora Park versus Parkfield and Buckley Ridges versus Lyndale results were unavailable at time of publication.
