Hoppers Crossing will want to forget Saturday’s clash with Melton as quickly as possible after an embarrassing batting display led to their losing their one-day clash by 10 wickets.
The Cats were dismissed for just 19, including five ducks, after 22 overs. The Melton bowlers had a field day, with the home side wrapping up the game inside six overs to complete a stunning victory.
Hoppers Crossing was watchful early on a sticky wicket, with runs hard to come by, but its batsmen got through the first 10 overs, with the score at 1-10 before things went awry.
Melton brought on change bowlers Jake Charge and Nathan Geisler, who started the rot as Hoppers quickly slipped from 1-12 to all out 19, including spells when they lost 4-0 and 4-1.
Charge grabbed 4-3, while Geisler’s 5-5 was the pick of the figures as they completed the rout. The Melton batsmen were in no mood to take their time in the chase, Ben MacRae and Michael Alexander racing to the target in 5.5 overs to maintain Hoppers’ winless start to the summer.
Elsewhere, Werribee fell to its first loss of the sub-district season on Saturday, succumbing to Taylors Lakes after losing tight control with the ball late in the Lions’ innings. After winning the toss and sending Taylors Lakes in, Werribee did the job early, capturing regular wickets to have the Lions 6-114 at drinks before the game started to turn.
Taylors Lakes pair Yoshan Kumara (74) and Mark Koutroubas (52) swung it towards the home side with an unbroken 113-run stand as the Lions posted 6-227. Jonathon Burton was the best with the ball for the visitors, his 3-44 coming from nine overs.
In reply, Werribee lost James Freeman (2) early before consolidating with some strong partnerships at the top of the order.
Brothers Matthew (35) and Shaun Dean (23) put on 62 for the second wicket, but when both were dismissed within minutes of each other it sparked a collapse that the Tigers couldn’t recover from.
The visitors fell away badly in the second half of the innings, being dismissed for 126 with seven batsmen contributing just 31 runs between them. The loss had Werribee slipping from third to sixth on the east-west ladder.
