By LIAM TWOMEY
FOOTSCRAY walked away from the Premier Cricket Bush Bash round with two important victories to maintain its place at the top end of the ladder. The Bush Bash sees teams travel to a country location throughout the state and play in two Twenty20 fixtures on the day.
Footscray’s first match came against Essendon in Port Fairy with the Bulldogs being sent in to bat by the Bombers and it didn’t take the batsmen long to find their feet at the crease.
Despite the early loss of Dylan Kight, the combination of Dean Russ (21), Travis Dean (32) and Michael Hill (33) helped lift the score to 8/124 after 20 overs.
In reply, Brent McMinn almost dragged his side to victory with a powerful 37 from 26 balls.
The knock included three fours and two sixes.
However, McMinn couldn’t get enough help from his fellow batsmen and the Footscray bowlers took charge with Essendon finishing at 7/116.
There wasn’t much time to celebrate the win, with the Bulldogs’ next clash starting almost immediately against Prahran.
Again batting first, the combination of Russ (32) and Dean (35) showed their talents to get the innings off to a fast start.
After missing out in the first match, Kight also had a point to prove and was the pick of the batsmen on his way to 50 runs off 49 balls as Footscray posted 3/138.
In reply, Prahran looked in trouble throughout its innings as wickets continued to tumble before an impressive lower order fight back kept the match alive.
Sam Coates made 20 off 18 balls while James Miller blasted 39 from 36.
Despite the late charge, the Footscray bowlers were able to maintain their nerve as Prahran fell five runs short.
The two wins see the Bulldogs sit in outright second on the Premier Cricket ladder with an 8-2 win/loss record for the season.
In another double-header round of matches this week, Footscray will take on Melbourne and Geelong.
