HARSH LESSON
Tassie’s cricket title quest continues with a ...
REGULARLY experiencing the finals cauldron will only help Tasmania’s quest to end its finals drought after the state came up empty-handed for a third consecutive time in 10 months.
While cricket is firmly on the upward trend following the Hobart Hurricanes’ maiden BBL final appearance in January and the Tigers reaching the Sheffield Shield decider in March and yesterday’s One-Day Cup final, taking the next step to success remains elusive.
On a slightly deteriorating pitch at Junction Oval, the visitors were unable to cash in on Gurinder Sandhu’s stunning record-breaking achievement with the ball in restricting Victoria to 274, crashing to a 110-run defeat after blowing the run chase.
Sandhu, who switched from NSW after losing his Blues contract in the off-season, became the first Tiger to claim a one-day domestic hat-trick when he removed Matt Short, Fawad Ahmed and Andrew Fekete off the last three balls of the innings to finish with 7-56 as the Bushrangers lost 9-103 from a position of command at 1-171 in the 33rd over.
However, the Tigers were never in the hunt when their top order was picked apart.
“We thought it was set up for our style of batting, to take the game deep, have a batter in at the back-end and we just couldn’t quite get going,” coach Adam Griffith said.
“We looked a bit tentative with the bat, and couldn’t get that one partnership at the top which we have throughout the tournament.
“Experience is a big thing, you can’t buy it off the shelf. From where the group had come from, it was always going to be a big ask to step straight out into a final and play like an experienced unit.
“All of these experiences they have had have been great learning opportunities for us.
“Each time you play in a final, hopefully you get better the next time, all we can do is strive to make finals and that’s the only time you can win them, when you are in them.”
After the early loss of Matthew Wade, player of the tournament Ben McDermott plundered 16 from one Fawad Ahmed over to give the chase a jolt before trying to clear the fence a third time and skying a slog sweep to mid-wicket for 34 to see the score 2-67.
Jordan Silk fell cheaply to part-timer Nic Maddinson, before former Tiger Fekete delivered the knockout blow in removing George Bailey and Simon Milenko in quick succession as the visitors slumped to 5-101.
“We went into today pretty confident the boys were playing really well and we just couldn’t quite nail our style today which has worked really well through the tournament,” Griffith said. “We will sit down and regroup. We have a Shield game in six days, so we have to make sure the boys are up. But it was probably the one that got away from us.”