By Marcus Uhe
It’s a win that Casey-South Melbourne could well reflect on come the season’s pointy end as being as critical as any in what is expected to be another hotly-contest Premier Cricket season.
Just two points separated positions three to six last summer, highlighting the importance of every single contest in the competition, and luck was on the Swans side on Saturday in the midst of a spate of wash outs across Melbourne.
Despite a depleted First XI due to injuries and availability, Casey-South Melbourne successfully defended 174 in a cold, wet and windy one-day contest against Frankston-Peninsula at Frankston.
The Swans’ veteran bowling attack kept the Heat to just 159 in reply, ensuring Devin Pollock’s steely 33 with the bat went rewarded.
Coming to the crease at 3/53 after the top three fell for single-figure scores, the stand-in captain formed a crucial partnership with Chris Bedenek to stabilise the innings.
Pollock top-scored for the Swans with an innings that made his injured skipper Luke Shelton beam with pride.
“That’s ‘Dev’ to a tee and that’s why I love ‘Dev’ as a cricketer,” Shelton said.
“He’d be the first to admit that it was a pretty scratchy 30 – he got dropped once or twice and didn’t hit much out of the middle at all, but he’s a fighter and managed to fight through to get us to a decent enough score.
“We probably just needed a couple of senior heads to get together for an hour to wrestle some momentum, and Dev and Chris Bedenek did that.
“They were both extremely disappointed to get out when they did but in hindsight, that partnership probably got us to a score we were able to defend.”
With the ball, the trio of Jackson Fry, Nathan Lambden and Kellapotha were at their miserly best, working well in tandem to strangle the Heat’s chase.
Lambden picked up where he left off from a brilliant summer last season, removing opener Nicholas Taranto in the opening over of the chase to immediately give the Swans the upper hand.
The home side’s top order offered little resistance outside of Charlie Maxwell, and at 4/34 in the eighth over, the Heat was forced back into their shells.
Maxwell was the key wicket, the only player to pass 50 in the afternoon, striking at just shy of a run a ball, with plenty of boundaries to put the pressure back on the bowling attack.
When debutant Jack Stevenson dismissed him for 58, the game took another sharp swing.
To that stage in the innings, Maxwell had made 58 of the Heat’s 80 runs, and when he became Stevenson’s first victim in Casey-South Melbourne red, the Swans were jubilant.
“He was looking to score coming after our bowlers and hitting the ball really cleanly,” Shelton said of Maxwell.
“That wicket was massive and the rest of them were looking to occupy the crease, survive and chew-up balls, which might have been their downfall in the end.
“As soon as he went out, we were able to suffocate them a bit and when it was time, when they had no choice but to try and score, they got out.”
A 49-run stand for the sixth wicket brought the Heat back into the contest, before Stevenson and Fry combined to break it at 6/129.
The tail offered some resistance, but fell away dramatically, losing their final four wickets for eight runs to finish 15 shy.
Kellapotha’s economy was finally rewarded late in the innings, taking two wickets in the tail to finish with 2/24 from nine overs.
Despite a meagre total to defend, Shelton never wavered in his confidence that his bowlers could get the job done with ball.
Having blown out the cobwebs, the Swans now set themselves for a massive pair of upcoming fixtures at home against two sides they defeated on the way to last year’s grand final, in Prahran and Ringwood.
“We’ve built a DNA in the last few years that, whether we’ve got 400 on the board or 100, we want to bowl, field and play a similar way,” Shelton said.
“I wasn’t too stressed about the runs we had on the board, because I knew if we bowled to our potential, we would bowl them out and have enough runs.
“We were one of the two ‘lucky’ games to be completed and if the result had have gone the other way, we would have been behind the eight-ball a little bit.
“We were fortunate that we did get the win, but we’re still extremely confident in our squad and what we’ve got at our disposal.
“Fingers crossed we can progress keep building and bank as many wins as possible and finish as high as possible, so that potential couple of extra points doesn’t make or break us come to the last round, and we’re already in a really strong position.”
Shelton will miss the next four weeks as he recovers from a back injury, while Harry Hoekstra won’t return from India in time for round two, currently touring with the Australian Under 19 side, and Ash Chandrasinghe’s availability will be dependent on Victorian Sheffield Shield selection.
