Aberfeldie and Haig Fawkner battle for maiden Senior Division premiership
Aberfeldie and Haig Fawkner, the top two teams in VTCA Senior Division, will battle for a maiden premiership after convincing semi-final victories.
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There will be a first-time champion in VTCA Senior Division this season.
Aberfeldie and Haig Fawkner will battle for the premiership in a three-game grand final series, both hoping to win a maiden top-flight flag.
The clubs have been the best two for much of the season, finishing one-two after the home-and-away season.
Abers marched into the decider with a commanding eight-wicket win over Yarraville Club, while Haig Fawkner claimed an equally impressive seven-wicket win over Druids to book their place.
Both teams possess star-studded line-ups with the likes of Haig Fawkner’s Jaspreet Bhatti, Charith Mendis, Khalid Hassan and Amit Chaudhary and Aberfeldie’s Cameron West, Jordan Kight, Craig Sheedy and Zach Mevissen set to play major roles.
After “winning” the wooden spoon in last season, Abers captain Tallan Wright said it was an amazing achievement but a premiership was the ultimate goal.
“It’s a fair change from this time last year. It’s been a pretty good season,” he said.
“We’ve been on top of almost the entire season but it won’t mean much if we slip up on the weekend.
“We touched on (the grand final) a little bit during the week,
“A lot of these guys have been playing here since their junior days and senior cricket in the lower grades, so it’s something for everyone to be proud of and the club to be excited by.
“A three-game (grand final) series, you can slip up once but the better side over the series deserves to hold the title up.
“Ideally we want it over two games and I’m sure Haig are the same.”
Youngster Will Wright was the hero for Abers on Saturday, taking 5-11, before Kight (62 not out) showed his class with the bat to chase down 117 with 12 overs to spare.
“Young Will Wright came on and just couldn’t miss, he bowls off the wrong foot, so he’s got a bit of a funny action and he’s hard to pick up.
“He’s only played a handful of senior games and to stand up against a really powerful opposition was enormous for us.
“His family was there and some mates, so it was nice for him to perform, and after the innings he walked a lap to lap up the adulation.
“Jordy’s been tremendous, he’s shown his class since Christmas and barely missed.
“Jordy and I made a pact to see the game through … we didn’t want to expose our middle to lower order and Jordy led the way as he’s done all year.
“He’s been awesome for us this season in both 40-over and 20-over cricket.”
Meanwhile, Haig captain Vaib Deshpande believed his team was hitting top form at the right time.
“It’s definitely a great achievement,” he said.
“Everyone from the president down, everyone involved in the club has come together this season.
“There were bits and pieces (of talk about the grand final) but most of us were so happy about winning the semi-final, so we’ll start to think about it when we get back to training on Tuesday.
“The whole team has peaked at the right time.
“The convincing win that we had in the semi-final, that’s a very good sign for us going into the grand final.”
Chaudhary took 3-38 as Druids were restricted to 5-178 and Bhatti (48), Viraj Lakshitha (51 not out) and Deshpande (29 not out) made short work of the chase.
While it might be the club’s first Senior Division grand final, there is plenty of experience in the Haig line-up.
“We’ve all played quite a lot of cricket all over the world,” Deshpande said.
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“This is the second season together for most of the team so you can see some very good team bonding.
“We’ve got an experienced group of cricketers, which really helps, and certainly makes my job easier – keeping calm in a pressure situation and provides me with different points of view.”
In two very similar games, Abers grabbed a five-wicket win at Mutton Reserve in December before Haig returned the favour with a six-wicket win at Clifton Park in February.
The three-game grand final series will be played at Clifton Park, starting on Saturday, March 19.
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