Footscray has made an impressive start to the Twenty20 strand of the Premier Cricket draw, defeating St Kilda by 29 runs on the road at the Harry Trott Oval on Sunday.
The Bulldogs were denied the chance to make it two-out-of-two in the shortest format at the weekend, when their game against Essendon at the Merv Hughes Oval on Saturday was washed out with them in the box seat.
Despite the initial setback, the win and the draw were enough to lift the Bulldogs into second place in the overall standings, as their good early-season form in the one-dayers carried over into the Twenty20s.
On Sunday, Footscray posted a competitive 8-150 off their 20 overs with state representative Travis Dean hitting an entertaining 57 off 40 balls.
Openers Greg Munro (15 off 12) and Hayden Butterworth (28 off 28) set up the innings with quick early runs.
Footscray delivered a superb performance with the ball, restricting
St Kilda to 4-121 off 20 overs.
New-ball operators Jonah Koch, who took 2-25 off four overs, and Hamish Winter-Irving, with 1-16 off four, led from the front as the Bulldogs contained a usually potent Saints batting line-up.
Damon Egan tried hard to get the Saints up to the required run rate with 54 off 48, but his side left its charge too late.
On Saturday, Footscray had its nose in front of the game against Essendon before a storm forced a halt to play.
After restricting the Bombers to 5-126 off 18.2 overs, the Bulldogs were coasting at 1-28 in reply after 2.3 overs.
Lance Jenkinson
