Milenko routs Knights

HURRICANE Milenko struck Kingborough last night but the only damage was to the confidence of the Knights as South Hobart-Sandy Bay claimed the CTPL T20 grand final at Blundstone Arena.

Allrounder Simon Milenko was the powerhouse behind the Sharks’ triumph in a game that could have gone either way.

Milenko tipped the scales towards the Sharks, cracking a quick 20 with the bat when they needed it most, and then ripped the heart out of Kingborough’s top order, dismissing the Knights’ best three batters to get South’s bid back on the rails.

The result was a 37-run win.

South Hobart-Sandy Bay started favourite with its ranks swelled by a Hurricanes quartet — skipper George Bailey, opener Alex Doolan, Milenko and Hamish Kingston — as well as former Australian Test and ODI gun Xavier Doherty.

Kingborough won the toss and sent South Hobart-Sandy Bay into bat and the underdog set about attacking the Sharks with a ferocity fitting of a final.

South lost its first wicket early, 1-6 when Matt Clark was fooled by a Tom Martyn beauty, which got through the gap and rocked his castle.

Doolan picked up where he left off the night before when he opened for the Hurricanes, blasting what turned out to be a game-high 48 runs off 46 balls, bashing seven boundaries on the way.

He and Sean Willis worked the ball well as they took the score to 2-49 when the latter departed (14 runs off 18 balls).

That brought Bailey to the crease to a warm welcome, but he said farewell eight deliveries and only two runs later when he was bowled by Cam Wheatley.

Milenko did his bit, blasting 20 off 14 balls and — the Sharks sitting well short of a defendable score at 7-120 off 19 overs — Doherty reached into his bag of tricks to help add 14 off the last, taking the Sharks to 8-134.

When Kingborough came out, Riley Backhouse made his intentions clear, cracking a couple of sweet boundaries in his innings of nine, which was promptly ended by Milenko.

Milenko then sent Mitch Backhouse back to the bench and cut short a promising innings of Nathan Freitag (14 off 17) doing irreparable damage to the Knights’ run chase, ending with 4-19.

Kingston took up the fight, blasting out the middle and lower order to finish with 4-18 off 3.4 overs, the Knights ending on 97.