Footscray Edgewater got its Premier Cricket season off to a winning start on Saturday, though not without a few tense moments late in the contest against Frankston Edgewater.
After round one was postponed due to poor weather, Saturday’s clash with Frankston became the nominal opening game, and it ended in a tight scrap, with the Dogs prevailing by 10-runs.
After winning the toss and electing to bat, Footscray Edgewater got off to the worst possible start – key opener Dean Russ was trapped in front by Ben Ashkenazi for a third ball duck.
Hayden Butterworth joined Travis Dean in the middle and, together the pair steadied the innings with a 47-run stand before Dean fell for 26, followed soon after by Butterworth for the same score.
With the top order gone, it was the middle order who stepped up and built a solid total, with a 127-run partnership between Matthew Underwood (48) and skipper Dylan Kight (75) doing the bulk of the damage.
Kight was particularly impressive, scoring at a quick rate, largely through clever running and quick singles rather than punishing boundaries.
Some late hitting from the tail pushed the total up to 6-222 off 50 overs, but it looked light on when the Heat put on 69 for the first wicket, and looked in control early in the second innings.
Jack Sheppard (1-43) finally got the breakthrough when he snuck one through Matthew Gapes’ defence, but the rest of the visiting top order batted around captain Luke Walker, moving to 2-150 before the game started to turn back in favour of the hosts.
Jeremy Hart snared two quick wickets to halt the visitors’ momentum, before Lucas Dredge got the big wicket of Walker for 81, finally giving the home side the upper hand.
Some tight late bowling was enough to restrict the Heat to 7-212, giving the Dogs an early season win to kickstart their campaign.
Reflecting on the game, Dogs coach’ Steve Chapman said it was good to bank an early win with a broad contribution across the team.
“It was a good hit out, and everyone got to utilise one or more of their skills, which is nice,” he said. “We’re very grateful for the result, especially after seeing some of the scores across the weekend at other grounds.
“We were maybe a bit too cautious with the bat … we probably wasted the new ball a bit, so there’s still plenty to work on ahead of St Kilda and Melbourne this weekend.”
