THE South East Coasters have continued their strong start to the Border Cup after a dominant bowling performance sealed victory over Adelaide at Scott Park on Wednesday.
After overnight rain dampened the pitch and outfield, Adelaide won the toss and elected to field first, forcing the home side to bat in bowler-friendly conditions.
The opening bowlers made use of the new ball with the early wicket of Micheal Young for five.
This brought Dale Bateman to crease with Steve Bell, who applied themselves to make sure Adelaide could not make further in-roads through the top-order.
After playing out the spells from the two openers, Bateman put his foot down when first-change bowler Kevin Shepley was introduced to the attack.
Bateman smashed 14 runs in Shepley’s opening over to lift the pace of the match, which sparked the Coasters top-order to dominate the following passages of play.
The only batsmen dismissed from overs nine to 32 were Max Arney (seven) and Martin Stephenson (golden-duck), as Bell (12), Bateman (35), Neil Perry (11), Gary Ashby (9) and Gary
Fox (11) all defied the challenging bowlers and conditions to retire after their allocated 25 balls.
Each player built a calculated innings which saw the home side’s total climb above triple figures and frustrated the Adelaide fielders.
Despite three quick low order wickets, Bell and Bateman returned to the crease and joined Colin Hutchesson to strike late blows and push the score to a competitive 7/133 from 40 overs.
With the ball, Dohnt and Stephenson struggled to contain the Adelaide openers who had their minds set on the Coasters’ score.
Chris McGlinchey retired and Ken Nettle continued as the batting pair scored 28 chance-less runs.
However, once Dohnt bowled Nettle for 15, the Adelaide top-order crumbled, handing South East the advantage.
Two wickets from Arney and one from Fox saw the visitors on the ropes at 4/36 with another 97 runs required.
A pair of steady innings from Robin Lutze and Geoff Field showed signs of a recovery, soon dashed in dramatic fashion once the duo retired.
The Adelaide run-chase came to a crashing end as they lost their last six wickets for just 24 runs.
Fox claimed his second victim lbw and Tony Legoe finished with 1/1 from his three overs, but it was the Coasters’ top performer with the bat who inflicted the most damage with the ball.
Bateman took three wickets, including the vital dismissal of Lutze to finish a strong South East team effort to win by a comfortable 43 runs.
The South East Coasters now sit well placed in the Border Cup standings after the home side won both of its fixtures with just one match remaining against Geelong.
