By Marcus Uhe
Parkmore will defend its meagre total of 122 against HSD on Saturday with the mentality that the pivotal Dandenong District Cricket Association Turf 2 contest is far from over, according to captain Niranjen Kumar.
HSD in the box seat, thanks to a brilliant bowling performance led by last summer’s Gartside Medal winner in Triyan De Silva that has his side on the brink of being just the second team to defeat Parkmore and unseat the Pirates from their perch at the pinnacle of the Turf 2 pile.
His four critical wickets in an 11-over opening spell that reduced the Pirates to 4/28 at Frederick Wachter Reserve could prove to be pivotal point in the Turf 2 season, in one of the biggest contests of the summer on arguably its biggest weekend, with two clashes pitting two top-four teams against one-another.
De Silva removed each of the top three, including Pirates’ run machine Satheesh Fernandu, for single-figure scores, while number five Ammar Bajwa didn’t trouble the scorers in his innings, the second wicket to fall in the 17th over, having begun with Johann Brohier edging the ball into the gloves of Mackenzie Gardner.
Bajwa was De Silva’s final wicket of the innings but the carnage he caused in the frightening opening spell was enough to put the Cobras on the brink of one of the season’s biggest results.
The Pirates scrounged its way to 122 from 66 overs, with Hewafonsekage Fonseka making 22 and skipper Kumar reaching 20.
Craig Hookey was afforded the luxury of spreading the overs among his bowling group, with twin brother Brett’s 16 the most bowled by any of the five frontline quicks.
Brett Hookey and Ryan Patterson both grabbed two wickets apiece.
HSD made it to 20 without loss at the close of play, as Ethan French and Brent Patterson led the resistance in a 14-over stay.
Kumar described the batting innings as a “learning experience”, believing the fight is far from over and backing his bowlers – who have combined to take 67 of a possible 70 wickets this summer – to put the pressure back on the Cobras when play resumes.
“We know that they’re a good team and I think there’s still some belief that we’ll play as well as we can and make it as competitive as we can for the remainder of this game,” Kumar said.
“We probably didn’t execute as well as we could have with the bat and they bowled really well, so kudos to them.
“It was nothing too surprising, really; they bowled well, we nicked off a couple early.
“There was some variable bounce and (De Silva) bowled really well, he had the ball moving early on and hit good lines and lengths and got some edges.
“We’ll see how it all pans out on Saturday but we’re confident that if we can bowl to our abilities like we’ve done in the first half of the year, we should make it a struggle, and that’s what we’re trying to tell the team – make it a struggle and have many blokes padded up on Saturday.”
Kumar has every right to be confident in his bowling attack but the major issue with his side lies with their batters.
Securing the wicket of Fernandu was vital for HSD, and continues an unwanted pattern for Parkmore in putting too much reliance on their opening batter.
Outside of Fernandu, who is in Gartside Medal contention himself with four half-centuries at the top of the order, no batter has stamped their authority on the season to date.
The Pirates’ only other loss of the summer saw Fernandu removed without scoring against Coomoora, and while he made just nine in last round’s win over Narre Warren, he still comfortably outshines his fellow batters on a consistent basis.
They have just two others – Kyle Gwynne and Fonseka – to have passed 100 total runs for the season, equal with Lyndale as the lowest collection of players to pass the mark, and to have raised the bat for a half-century.
While some of this is due to their bowlers taking care of business with the ball and having low totals to chase, the numbers paint an alarming picture compared to the deeper batting sides like Saturday’s opposition.
Kumar, however, is confident that they can discover their touch before the business end of the summer.
“We’ve got a middle order that’s faced a lot of balls and I know they’re not making a lot of runs, but they’re spending a lot of time in the middle,” he said.
“Form can change and we’ve had people step up with runs that don’t stand out of the page – they’re not 50s but they’re important contributions of 20s, 30s and 40s that are getting up to a total we can defend, so there’s no concerns.
“Both teams need to play on the same conditions so we’ll see how we go.”
