By Tyler Lewis
Class is permanent.
And while it wasn’t enough to guide his side to a famous victory over Prahran, Dandenong’s Tom Donnell was at his vintage best on Saturday.
After an extremely trim period of runs, the Panthers champion delivered a stirring knock of 79 from 87 balls.
Before the match at Toorak Park on Saturday, Donnell’s last five knocks delivered just eight runs.
With his side needing to capitalise on the powerplay if it was to chase Prahran’s 5/271, Donnell stepped up.
The left-hander struck the ball cleanly and did so with genuine cricket shots, demonstrating the experienced campaigner has still got a trick or two left in the kit bag.
With a new batting order – one that saw skipper Brett Forsyth slide to the middle order and Josh Slater promoted to open – Donnell put on an 117 run stand with hard-hitting all-rounder Matt Wilson for the second wicket.
Wilson himself struck the ball as best as he has all year, carving out 62 from 93 deliveries.
The contest between last year’s grand finalist’s came down to the wire, with a catch from reigning John Scholes Medallist Damon Egan on the boundary proving to be the difference between the two sides.
Egan – who has been a thorn in the flesh of the Panthers in recent times – hung onto a diving catch on the boundary to dismiss Sam Newell (22 from 18) in the final over.
The ball was destined to reach the rope – possibly clear it – and put the Panthers in a match-winning position, but it wasn’t to be, with Egan once again being a key contributor in the True Blues win.
Though the Panthers fell six runs short and are now fighting an uphill battle to make finals, captain Brett Forsyth was still pleased his sides performance.
“For us I think it was a quality chase,” he said.
“It (Egan’s catch) could’ve been six, it could’ve gone for four, it took some brilliance from them (Prahran) to stop us.
“From that point of view I was really pleased with the run chase and how we went about it, there was certainly a lot of positives from the game for us that we can build on for the rest of the season.”
Donnell was at his brilliant best, but the half-century after a lean run didn’t surprise Forsyth.
“From a team point of view, that is just what we expect from him,” he laughed.
“He is probably going to go down as one of the best batters in the competitions history… three time premiership player, captain of a premiership team, and all the accolades he has been able to achieve.
“Once you know how good he is, you just back him in.
“The thing that happens as a batter and at the top is you might be batting well, but you just find ways to get out, which I think has happened to him a little bit.
“There was no slogging, it was all good quality cricket shots, smart-partnership batting and it was great for some of the guys who haven’t played much cricket with him, or seen him in full flight to see that (knock).
“He definitely rises for the big games and his team, so I have no doubt he will produce a few match-winning innings for us before the end of the season,” Forsyth said.
With six matches left in the Victorian Premier Cricket season, Dandenong sit in 13th on the ladder, eight points from Fitzroy-Doncaster in eighth.
