The top four of the Dandenong District Cricket Association’s Turf 2 competition could almost be locked away at the conclusion of round nine, with the second half of the summer simply a battle for seeding supremacy.
Each side in the top four is scheduled to face a side in the bottom four, with the potential for a three-game gap to establish between fourth and fifth, should each of the higher-placed sides collect six points.
With only five games remaining after round nine, the assignment will be mighty tough for the teams on the outside looking in, in Parkfield, Narre Warren, Lyndale and St Mary’s.
Coomoora, one of three sides tied on 30 points with Cranbourne and HSD, currently holds fourth place and heads to Barry Powell Oval to face six-placed Lyndale, while Parkfield, in fifth, has a tough task against HSD at home.
Parkfield and HSD was viewed as a potential grand final preview before the season began but Parkfield’s struggles has seen them fall back in the pack, with a fight on its hands to climb into the top four now its primary focus.
Both Coomoora and HSD will be smarting after conceding games they should have won or were in winnable positions to – Coomoora especially, having dropped what appeared a seemingly unloseable contest against Parkfield in round eight.
Lyndale turned in a complete performance against HSD last week but will be tested in the game’s longer format.
The same can be said for Coomoora, however, a side comfortably outplayed in its only two-day contest of the season after falling two runs shy of being undefeated in white ball cricket.
HSD, by contrast, thrashed St Mary’s in its only two-day contest, where spinner Sakuntha Liyanage took 4/55 and shouldered much of the bowling load, fulfilling the preseason hope of the new tweaker to relieve its seamers.
When Parkmore head to Narre Warren, the division’s best bowling attack meets the division’s most in-form batter in Amila Ratniake.
Ratniake has just one score below 50 this summer, averaging 68 and making 74 against the same attack back in round two.
No side has taken more wickets this summer than the Pirates’ 57, while the Magpies only trail HSD for runs scored, as just one of three sides to break the 1000-run mark.
For Parkmore, the test will be for its batters to get a foothold in the summer, and spend some quality time at the wicket.
Satheesh Fernandu has 123 more runs than the Pirates’ second-highest run scorer in Kyle Gwynne, with no others making more than 100 this summer, and the only game in which he failed to get going came in the Pirates’ only loss of the summer against Coomoora, where his teammate’s frailties were exposed.
Turf 2’s sleeper side, meanwhile, Cranbourne, will be confident in notching a fourth win in a row, with St Mary’s next on the docket.
Tips: Lyndale v COOMOORA, Parkfield v HSD, St Mary’s v CRANBOURNE, Narre Warren v PARKMORE.
