By JARROD POTTER
VICTORIAN PREMIER CRICKET – ROUND 14
AGONISINGLY close to a tremendous upset, Dandenong (164) needed one more partnership to seal the deal against Monash Tigers (195 and 5/74).
Monash brought back the big artillery for the second day against Dandenong – with Big Bash pair Cameron White and Dan Christian returning to wreak havoc with the ball.
The steady start from Brett Forsyth (44) and Tanner Stanton (11) came unstuck fast as Allan Wise (3/33) and the Tigers appealed long and hard to get Stanton out – before skittling Cam Forsyth (2) a few balls later.
Forsyth fell next – hitting out against Marcus Berryman (4/32) – before Matt Shimell (2/31) joined the party and in the space of 30 runs, the Panthers had shed the entire top order and went into lunch with shoulders slumped at 7/118.
That should’ve been the end of the story with Dandenong’s notoriously fragile tail this year, but another chapter was written by Ed Newman (15), David Alleyne (27no) and Adam McMaster (23) down the order.
It was hard going – Berryman tried to bounce their heads off while Wise and Christian were using the gale-force winds to their advantage – but the lads dug deep.
Newman fell first – not before striking a gutsy 15 at only 16 years-old – before McMaster showed he’s a dab-hand late in the game.
Carrying on from his bowling last week, McMaster struck a couple of fours Dandy’s older statesmen would’ve been thrilled to hit, including a sensational late cut over backward point from a wide Berryman bouncer.
Chipping it around, edging the singles while crunching the occasional bad ball to the rope, the Alleyne-McMaster partnership pushed towards 50 before the worst of dismissals for McMaster.
With White (1/7) introduced to the attack from the scoreboard end against the wind, McMaster tried to feather one down the leg-side, didn’t get anything on it… but was caught by the keeper Jack Harper and given out to his dismay. His wicket began the end as Monash cleaned up the hosts in the 65th over.
Monash’s second innings hit around was highlighted by the strong bowling of McMaster (2/26) and Wilcock (2/14).
“They got on a bit of a roll,” Dandenong skipper Tom Donnell said. “Tanner was very unlucky to go out when the umpire was pressured a bit to give him out and that got their tails up and ran through us a bit until lunch.
“That was the hardest period for us – the first hour was really good, Brett and Tanner did well – but once we lost Tanner it sort of fell away a bit.
“Ed Newman had his first hit and got us back on track a little bit, then Adam had a great game – both weekends – and did really well, he’s only a 19 year old and is really important for our future.”
The loss leaves Dandenong well off the pace in 12th position and with only three rounds left, will need wins aplenty and other results to go its way to make the top-eight. It starts this weekend away against Melbourne Uni.
“That’s all that we can aim for – we have to win all three and if we drop one we probably can’t make it,” Donnell said. “It’s really tight at the moment – there were games where we’ve been lucky, games we’ve been unlucky – and hopefully we can perform well… I think we can win them all and put a few good performances together.”
