Footscray secures big win over Essendon with debutant leading from the front

Footscray’s young talent shone in victory over Essendon as a debutant starred with the bat and an emerging quick wreaked havoc.

Footscray’s young talent shone in the club’s breakthrough Premier Cricket win on Saturday.

The Bulldogs claimed an eight-wicket win over Essendon at Merv Hughes Oval to open their season account.

Debutant Aiman Nadeem scored an impressive 60 in a record-breaking opening stand with Dylan Brasher (73).

The 128-run partnership is Footscray’s highest opening stand against Essendon, breaking a 68-year-old record of 102 between Ray Hansen and Ian Priddle in 1955-56.

It was also the club’s fourth highest opening partnership at Merv Hughes Oval and 16th best opening partnership in Premier history.

Max Birthisel in action for Footscray. Picture: George Salpigtidis

Big Bash gun Arjun Nair (77), Vic Metro under-19s’ Josh Pace (44 not out) and Dylan Kight (32) then kept the runs flowing as Footscray finished 5-305.

Bulldogs coach Dale McDonald was rapt for young Nadeem to come in and have an instant impact.

“For him to open the batting with Brash, off the back of a hundred against Carlton in the second innings, AIman really enjoyed that,” McDonald said.

“He’s a pretty focused young man and he’d only just missed out on making the under-19s Vic Metro team, so was obviously a bit disappointed about that.

“It was a fantastic opening partnership between those guys and that allowed our batters underneath to come in and get some time in the middle.

“Pacey is a fine young talent, he made the Vic Metro under-19s team as a bottom-ager.

“That’s really good for his confidence and he got a lot out of that, learnt a lot, he got to bat with Arjun Nair for quite a while.

“Arjun got 70, which is his first 50 for the club and it was the best he’d bowled since he’s been at the club as well.”

On day one, emerging quick Max Birthisel snared 3-25, including the big wicket of James Seymour (19), conceding just 1.92 runs from his 13 overs.

In his second game back from injury, Ben Rosenboom claimed 2-33 and Nair took 2-20 as Essendon was dismissed for 154.

Emerson White (46) and Liam Molloy (31) were the Bombers’ leading batters.

McDonald said the bowling performance had set up the victory.

“We were a bit unsure about bowling first after winning the toss given Essendon made 400-odd the week before but that was probably the best bowling performance in 12 months,” he said.

“The four seam bowlers all bowled really well and Max and Boom reaped the most rewards from that.

“It obviously makes a big difference when your two opening bowlers set you up fairly well and it was a good opportunity for those two guys to swoop in and bowl really well.”

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The win sees Footscray jump up to 12th and it will host last-placed Northcote in another two-day game at Merv Hughes Oval, starting Saturday.

McDonald is confident after a tricky opening to the season the team is finding form.

“We knew we’d had a bad first two games but we weren’t as bad as what we’d shown,” he said.

“We had a couple of thing we had to tweak up and fingers crossed we’re on the right path now.”