By Marcus Uhe
Dandenong has drawn the curtains on a Premier Cricket season to forget with a five-wicket loss to Fitzroy-Doncaster.
Having only set 153 for victory and reaching 1/49 at stumps last week, the Lions reached the target in the 38th over despite the best efforts of the Panthers’ bowling group.
Leg-spinner Gehan Seneviratne bore the brunt of the batting performance, going for 66 off his eight overs but did take a superb one-handed catch off his own bowling, one of two wickets for the day.
Pushing for an outright victory, Fitzroy Doncaster declared at 5/192 and sent Dandenong back in, where they crawled to 7/107 in 56 overs.
Joshua Slater top scored with 38 off 119.
It consigned the Panthers to a third-last finish, their lowest finish since the turn of the millennium, capping a turbulent season which saw head coach Warren Ayres resign in January.
In Geelong, Casey-South Melbourne was unable to secure the result it needed to qualify for finals action.
With Geelong resuming at 4/112, with only 36 overs bowled on day one last week, the Swans needed to dismiss the Cats and chase their total in order to give themselves any chance of securing a finals berth.
Geelong, who were too far back to make a run at eighth spot, took the opportunity for some batting practice, setting the Swans 423 in 90.2 overs.
Nathan Lambden led the way for the Swans’ bowlers, taking 3/81 from his 18 overs, while Devlin Webb, Luke Shelton and Ruwantha Kellapotha each took two.
In reply, Casey South-Melbourne reached 4/205 before both sides shook hands.
Harrish Kannan finished his impressive year with the bat by making 52 off 56, to finish as the club’s leading run-scorer for the 2022/23 season.
