Hard lesson for Swans

By David Nagel
CASEY-SOUTH MELBOURNE couldn’t capitalise on a promising start with the bat on Saturday, going down to Melbourne University in round four of Victorian Premier Cricket.
Playing at it’s home ground, Casey Fields, the Swans won the toss and elected to bat in a rain shortened one-day clash that started at 1.30pm and was reduced from 40 to 29 overs.
Rohan Blandford and Jake Best opened up with an aggressive 27-run partnership before Best was out, caught for seven. Matthew Wade then joined Blandford and kept things ticking over nicely before Blandford went for 24.
Solid contributions from Jolyon Leaver, 16, and Jayde Herrick, 22, had the Swans primed to launch at 4/136 with eight overs remaining. But then the wheels well off.
State representative Wade brought up his 50 with a huge six before trying a repeat shot on the very next ball. He top edged the second attempt and departed for 54 but still the Swans’ had the batting depth to post a defendable score.
That’s when the panic set in and the home team stumbled to 9/164cc from its allotted overs.
“We needed 200 in those conditions,” Casey-South Melbourne coach, Mark Ridgway said.
“We were set up for a good total but we played some dumb shots towards the end, we wasted the last eight overs.
“It was pretty disappointing to be honest.”
Any hope the Swans had of rolling the Uni boys disappeared in a flurry of short, wide bowling from opening bowlers, Jayde Herrick and Rod Bird. Herrick in particular was erratic and became easy pickings for the Melbourne Uni top order – the game effectively over after the opening two spells.
“I think we thought we were going to roll straight through them, you need the right mindset in this game, if you don’t treat the game with respect it’ll bite you,” Ridgway said.
Melbourne University cruised to victory on 2/165 off 27.4 overs, but there were two highlights from Ridgway’s perspective.
“Clive Rose was outstanding with the ball, 2/16 when things are going like that was terrific, and young leg-spinner Chris Benedek bowled well without luck,” Ridgway said.
“He had a missed stumping and showed something, he’ll get more opportunities throughout the season, no doubt.”
The Swans face Footscray Edgewater this week in Country Round at Numurkah, north of Shepparton, and Ridgway expects a close contest.
“They’ll be around the same mark as us, we don’t know what sort of pitch we’ll get up there being so early in the season so we’ll just see what happens,” he said.