By Michael Esposito
WERRIBEE had no answer to a swashbuckling innings from Williamstown captain Craig Sheedy in the first Twenty20 match of the Victorian sub-district season on Saturday.
Sheedy made a dashing 78 not out while fellow opener Grant Sandars was almost as impressive, posting an unbeaten 48 in a game shortened to 15.2 overs each by rain.
Williamstown’s total of 127 (at 8.3 an over) was far too steep a hill to climb for Werribee, which lost early wickets and never recovered, limping to 9/75.
Sheedy, who is averaging an incredible 95 runs this year, said his decision to forgo heroics in favour of playing each ball on its merit proved the right one.
“I hit the ball probably as clean as I’ve hit it for a while so I was really happy with that,” Sheedy said.
So well was he hitting the ball that he cracked an upstairs window of the sports club.
“Grant Sandars batted really well at the other end and was able to whack them around himself but also rotate the strike at the right times,” Sheedy said.
“I spoke to him before the game about hitting the ball but trying to keep still when hitting the ball, not sort of just swinging and hoping for the best. We hit to out areas and it worked out well.”
The rain fell for most of Werribee’s innings, but it didn’t seem to affect Williamstown’s bowlers – seven of them claimed wickets.
Werribee coach Travis Bean said he couldn’t find much to fault with his side’s bowlers, they just came up against two batsmen in intimidating form.
“I was really happy with our bowling. We had our plans that we spoke about during the week and all of our guys executed those plans really well, it’s just that those two guys, especially Sheedy, batted really well,” Bean said.
“We didn’t put any chances down or do anything drastically wrong in the field.”
Werribee’s back was to the wall when openers David Wolfe (5) and Amit Padwal (6) were dismissed early.
“In that situation there’s no use in shutting up shop and saving the game because that concept doesn’t exist so we kept going,” Bean said.
“Unfortunately the rain got quite heavy, we had to play through that, and the ground did slow up quite a lot.
“But the bigger problem was, I think, our early wickets. If you need eight an over you’ve got to make sure you’ve got wickets in hand at the end, and that’s the luxury that Williamstown had that we didn’t end up having.”
Bean said there were “mixed feelings” about Twenty20 cricket among players in the association, but they believed the format was here to stay.
“There’ll probably be more Twenty20 for points next year. I think generally in the league there’s mixed feelings about the way it is and I think it’s a learning experience.
“It’s like anything that’s new, once people get used to it and learn about it it’s going to be a good thing for the sub-district association to do.”
In other results, VSDCA legend Gordon McFarlane celebrated his 300th first XI game with a win, as Altona proved too strong for Yarraville.
Yarraville made 7/130 in its innings, which was shortened to 19 overs because of time constraints, but Altona reeled in the total in the 17th over, also for the loss of seven wickets, to take its winning streak to four.
Melton (3/91) was too good for Sunshine’s 90 all out.
