By Marcus Uhe
A middle-order fightback helped Dandenong to a defendable score on the first day of its Premier Cricket contest against Camberwell at home on Saturday.
From a position of vulnerability at 3/33, half-centuries to Angus Newman (65) and Matthew Wilson (64) saw the Panthers reach 7/313 at the close of the play from 90 overs.
Tom Donnell was the only batter to pass 50 in their top five, after Brett Forsyth, Sahan Perera and Joshua Slater were all removed early by left-arm seamer William Walker.
Donnell shared a 63-run stand with a patient Max Marinic, and was building another with Wilson, before he was caught behind by a brilliant catch to the Magpies wicketkeeper, who was standing-up to the stumps.
At 5/121, having just lost one of their more experienced batters, things could have gone south for the Panthers, but as they have grown accustomed to doing in recent weeks, Wilson and Newman occupied the crease to snuff-out any danger of a collapse.
Their 89-run partnership was broken when Wilson became Andrew Gorvin’s second victim, leaving Newman to see-out the remainder of the day with Ben Allison and Sam Newell.
Allison hit seven fours in his innings of 38, and 24 of Newell’s 26 so far have come in boundaries, and will join Newman at the crease to resume their innings next week, should they choose to bat-on.
Much like their south-eastern counterparts, it was up to numbers six seven and eight to rescue Casey-South Melbourne at Casey Fields.
Already missing a pair of key batters in Michael Wallace to injury, and Ashley Chandrasinghe to Victorian duties, it shaped as a big day for the Swans’ other leading run-scorers this season in Harrish Kannan, Luke Manders and Ruwantha Kellapotha.
But things went from bad to worse for Will Carr’s men, languishing at 3/16 when Kellapotha was bowled for a third-ball duck to start the 10th over, with Manders (six) and Kannan (zero) already back in the sheds.
When Devin Pollock and Atharv Deshpande were dismissed just before lunch, it meant much of the heavy-lifting would fall on the shoulders of Lachlan Sperling as their last remaining batter.
He added a brisk 67 off 85 and shared a 118-run partnership with Luke Shelton, who registered his first half-century of the year, but outside of 45 from Devlin Webb, their tail did not wag, bowled-out in the 90th over for 245.
Meanwhile, Dandenong’s women’s side has gone down to Carlton by 53 runs.
A 144-run second wicket partnership put them on the back foot from the get-go.
After an early wicket, Carlton, which chose to bat first, was on the front foot courtesy of that busy partnership, despite some tight bowling from Emma Gallagher, whose 10 overs were seen over for just 28 runs.
Acacia Sutton broke that partnership in the 38th over which grounded Carlton just as the visitors looked to launch.
That dragged Dandenong back into the game as Carlton reached 5/204.
In response, the Panthers lost wickets continually as partnerships looked to be forming.
Lucy Cripps’ 60 formed the backbone of the innings, but she had only two teammates pass 20 – Chelsea Moscript (30 off 54) and Gallagher (unbeaten on 21) as Carlton’s bowlers proved too strong.
