By Marcus Uhe
One of the showpiece days on the Dandenong District Cricket Association (DDCA) calendar will captivate onlookers at Pultney Street on Sunday as the semi finals and grand finals of the DDCA’s T20 competition whittles the field from four teams to one.
Hallam Kalora Park and Berwick will square off on Shepley Oval in a heavyweight Turf 1 contest, with Cranbourne flying the flag for Turf 2 on next door Wilson Oval against Dandenong West.
The winners of each game (beginning simultaneously at 11am) will advance to the grand final on Shepley Oval at 3pm, where the tournament’s winner will be crowned.
HALLAM KALORA PARK v BERWICK
There’s no secret to how the Hawks have approached the T20 tournament this summer.
One only has to look at their three totals and see that the contests were often over by the change of innings.
Scores of 188, 235 and 244 have shut the gate on teams attempting to chase, as Damith Perera and Jordan Hammond embrace the opportunity to free their arms.
Perera’s scores of 50, 111 and 40 has seen him transfer his form from Turf 1 into the shortest format and he currently leads the competition for totals runs scored, with 201 at 67.
Hammond, meanwhile, is third on that list with 137, has two half-centuries to his name and brings Wookey Medal winning pedigree to the Hawks.
Should Berwick skipper Jarrod Goodes win the toss, the temptation to bowl first and put the Hawks under pressure for the first time in the tournament will be hard to ignore.
Berwick’s bowling attack has been excellent in one of the hardest runs to the semi finals of any remaining side, having prevailed in a group containing Springvale South and Buckley Ridges.
Across those two performances, the Bears took 20/223, bowling first against the Bloods and defending just 117 against the Bucks.
James Trodd bowls quick, and will be a great test at the top of the Hawks’ order, while Ruwantha Kellapotha, Elliot Mathews, Lachlan Brown and Matthew Hague’s spinning varieties will be critical in keeping the scoring rate down.
Should Trodd and Goodes make an initial breakthrough or two with the new ball, Hallam Kalora Park’s remaining batters will be exposed.
Matthew Calder, their marquee from Casey South Melbourne, and Mahela Udawatte, are excellent reinforcements, but beyond them, their reserves will be tested.
Berwick is yet to post a big total in the competition yet, but has the capacity and firepower to do so.
Kellapotha, Hague and Jarryd Wills will target the shorter square boundaries, with Michael Wallace and Jake Hancock offering stability in the middle order.
Wallace and Hancock will both be familiar with Shepley Oval as former Premier Cricketers and will likely play foil rolls for the big hitters at the top of the order, working the ball into the ground’s big gaps and running hard between the wickets.
It’s one that could go either way, but with the Hawks yet to be tested thus far, and Berwick’s winning pedigree in this competition as previous winner two seasons ago, the Bears have a slight edge.
CRANBOURNE v DANDENONG WEST
Given its predicament midway through the second group game, seeing Dandenong West in the final four is an incredible achievement in itself.
At 5/30 early in the eighth over, the Bulls’ run looked set to peter out, until Nuwan Kulasekara and Nathan Power performed a spectacular revival.
Boundary-heavy half-centuries from both players took them to 149, 44 too many for the Lions to chase at home.
Against Silverton in the quarter-final, when the top order faltered again chasing 101, Kulasekara was there once more to dig the Bulls out of a hole.
With 30 wickets across three matches and having conceded the least runs of the four sides remaining, Dandenong West’s bowlers are well-and-truly holding up to their end of the bargain, steered expertly by Riley Siwes in the field.
An explosive Cranbourne lineup, however, pose a completely new threat.
When the Eagles have claimed the upper hand in their matches thus far, they have not looked back.
Bowling first in each contest (twice by choice), Cranbourne have kept teams to 106, 129 and 107 in three games, before chasing the totals with relative ease – it has lost just eight wickets and scored at eight runs per over across the course of three innings.
Harsaroup Singh and Harrison Carlyon are as dangerous a pair as you’ll find at the top of the order, having accounted for two-thirds of the Eagles’ total runs.
Their batting against Dandenong West’s bowling, therefore, becomes the major match up.
Like Berwick, the Bulls will have to bowl first and back their ability to contain Cranbourne’s power hitters.
They simply cannot rely on Kulasekara to rescue them again – even though he probably could.
With multiple spinners and a pair of international talents that do this for their country, in Carlyon and Julius Smerauer, Cranbourne should enter as favourites.
