By Marcus Uhe
An unbeaten century from Dandenong captain Brett Forysth was not enough for the Dandenong Panthers to open their Premier cricket season with a round one victory, going down by 23 runs to local rivals Casey South Melbourne in a one-day match at Casey Fields on Saturday.
Forsyth could hardly have asked for a better individual start to his batting season with 135 off 147 deliveries, but the Swans’ first innings total of 6-264 proved too much for the Panthers to overcome in a reversal of the result of the corresponding clash between the two last season.
The Panthers could only muster 5-241 in reply, meaning Forsyth scored 56 per cent of his side’s runs with too much left to the veteran opener.
Joshua Slater contributed 57 and Andrey Fernando 27 but they were the only other Panther batters to score in double figures in a disappointing first-round loss.
New Swans captain Luke Shelton won the toss in his first game in charge and elected to bat under grey skies and after a week of substantial rainfall across Melbourne.
With Victorian contracted players in Ashley Chandrasinghe and Ruwantha Kellapotha not selected for the state’s opening Sheffield Shield fixture of the season in Perth, the two stars opened the batting for the Swans to maximise the amount of overs available at the crease.
Sporting a largely new-look bowling attack featuring recruits Noah Hurley, Vishwa Ramkumar and Ollie Jenkins, and debutant James Hayes, the contest was always going to shape as a period of unknowns for the Panthers in the first contest under new coach Tom Donnell.
The Victorian opening batting pair added 83 for the first wicket before Jenkins’ spin made the breakthrough, with Chandrasinghe caught behind by Sam Newell for 35.
His dismissal brought Harrish Kannan to the crease, a man expected to push for a baggy blue Victorian cap this summer, who quickly found his feet.
Striking at better than a run-a-ball, Kannan made 43 off just 40 before his 92-run stand with Kellapotha was broken by Gehan Seneviratne.
New recruit Yash Pednekar didn’t last long, adding just four runs, meaning the Swans had slipped from 1-175 to 3-186 in quick succession.
Unfazed by the drama around him at the other end, however, was Kellapotha.
On the back of a breakout season for the all-rounder in which he broke through for his first appearances at the professional State and Big Bash League levels for Victoria and the Melbourne Renegades, respectively, Kellapotha hit the ground running with 109 off 125 deliveries.
He eventually departed next, at 4-231, before contributions from Michael Wallace (43) and Lachlan Sperling pushed the total to 264 after 50 overs.
Spin-twins Jenkins (1-45 off eight overs) and Ramkumar (1-35 off nine) were the picks of the bowlers, making excellent starts to their lives in Dandenong blue.
Forsyth and Fernando made a patient start to the chase, surviving the first 10 overs without loss but having only reached 32.
Left-armer Jackson Fry beat the edge of the debutant Fernando multiple times in a typically excellent and accurate opening spell from the lake end as the miserly Swans offered limited scoring opportunities.
Shelton, Devlin Webb and Kellapotha shouldered much of the overs during the middle of the innings, Webb’s seam-bowling variations in particular making him tough to score from.
Forsyth and Fernando looked to fight the spin with more expansive strokes, the senior head of the pair hitting Shelton for a pair of boundaries during his second over with a lofted drive and a hard sweep as the two captains went toe-to-toe.
Kellapotha’s introduction saw Forsyth hit him for a boundary through mid-wicket off his first ball, but he soon had Fernando caught by Sperling at first slip for 27.
For as tight as the Swans had bowled, they had produced seldom wicket-taking opportunities, and Sperling’s grasp of a fine edge was a much-needed breakthrough.
Forsyth raised his bat for a half-century in the 21st over but Joshua Slater’s arrival at the crease following Fernando’s removal saw scoring dry-up.
The first-drop struggled to penetrate the infield and rotate the strike, resulting in Forsyth not facing as many deliveries as Donnell and the Panthers would have liked.
Slater hit Kellapotha for a pair of boundaries in the 25th over but the Panthers were dealing mostly in boundaries and not much else, despite a lack of pressure in the form of wicket-taking deliveries.
Forsyth was making a habit of big strikes against Kellapotha, hitting him for boundaries on the first ball of the over four times to immediately put the pressure back on the leg-spinner for the remainder of the over.
Webb’s metronomic control, whose 10 overs went for just 29 runs at the other end, forced the batters to play with aggression against the spinners before Fry was returned to the wicket as the Panthers increased their urgency.
Slater began to look more comfortable at the crease the longer he spent in the middle, and with 10 overs remaining the Panthers needed 87 more runs with nine wickets in the sheds.
A quick single from Forysth saw him raise the bat for a classy hundred before Slater’s half-century was achieved the very next delivery.
Needing to up the run rate, Slater tried to innovate against the spin of Sperling, but overbalanced and was bowled around his legs when trying to elevate over square leg.
They made slight inroads, with 14 coming off the 45th over, but the run rate required reached 12 with five overs to come.
Forsyth ramped Nathan Lambden for consecutive boundaries as Shelton returned to a strike bowler late in the innings but he was playing a lone-hand with the willow.
Max Maranic sliced a cut shot to Pednekar at backward point and Matthew Wilson hit-wicket the next ball as the pressure from Lambden and the Swans’ death bowlers tolled, and the innings petered-out.
Lambden (2-40 off eight) was the only multiple wicket-taker for the Swans but was also the most-expensive of the seam bowlers, while Kellapotha added 1-58 to his century in a sensational all-round performance.
The Panthers falling 23 runs short with five wickets remaining will no-doubt raise questions as to their approach to the chase, while the Swans will be pleased to walk-away from the opening match of the season with the points.
Dandenong host Prahran at Shepley Oval next week where Casey travel North to Greenvale for two-day cricket.
