Premier Cricket 2018-19: Monash Tigers paceman Blade Baxter grabs 10 wickets in outright win

Blade Baxter became the first Monash Tigers bowler to grab 10 wickets in a game in 18 years, guiding his side to an outright victory over Greenvale.

Blade Baxter celebrates one of his 10 wickets. Picture: Hamish Blair

Twelve months after Monash Tigers scored an outright win over Greenvale Kangaroos, Daniel Sartori’s side again secured maximum points over the Kangaroos to move back into the Premier Cricket top eight.

Monash left-armer Blade Baxter became the first Tiger to grab 10 wickets in a match since Englishman Paul Collingwood in 2000-01.

Baxter returned match figures of 10-45, complementing his 7-20 in the first innings with 3-25 off 21 overs on Saturday, sending down 12 maidens as Greenvale attempted to halt Monash’s push towards an outright.

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The result lifted Monash from 10th to sixth and, as was the case last year, now has an outside chance of pinching a top-four berth leading into the final home-and-away round.

A great outright win by @MonashTigers today to keep finals hopes alive. What an outstanding effort by Blade Baxter with match figures 38-21-45-10 @vicpremcricket

— Michael Robinson (@ozrobbo) February 23, 2019

Some outstanding individual performances in today’s double outright Tiger Day. Liam Fernando & Blade Baxter both had 10 wicket games.
Blade is 1st Tiger since Paul Collingwood vs Carlton Rd 17 2000/01 to take 10 wkts in a match (Collingwood’s figures 11/75(24.1) - Baxter 10/45

— Monash Tigers (@MonashTigers) February 23, 2019

Greenvale resumed its second innings at 1-7 and Zaheer Hussain (47) and Kyle Adams both provided some early resistance with a 51-run partnership for the second wicket.

Adams absorbed 58 deliveries for his 8 runs across 100 minutes, while Haseeb Qureshi (46) held the middle-order and tail together across two-and-a-half hours.

Blade Baxter became the first Tigers in 18 years to grab 10 wickets. Picture: Hamish Blair

Qureshi received support from Sunam Gautam (27), Bernard Kelly (17) and captain Matthew Love (18) before Greenvale was knocked over for 194, leaving Monash 23 overs to chase down 102 for maximum points.

Young guns Campbell Vadlja and Jake Fraser-McGurk made light work of the pursuit, guiding the Tigers to the target with 14 balls to spare.

Fraser-McGurk was dismissed for 50 while Vadlja finished unbeaten on 45.

“I think the thing there was they weren’t hurting us on the scoreboard. They batted time but I always felt like it’s a tough thing to bat time without putting the pressure back on us,” Sartori said.

“Without them scoring at a quick rate, we always knew the lead was chaseable for us.

“I was always confident of getting the job done, we played well last week and I knew the game was well set up for us.

“We just had to back ourselves in to get the remaining nine wickets and I was pretty confident of being able to chase the runs down.”

Monash also picked up maximum points against Greenvale last season during a run of three outright wins before the finals.

The Tigers will host the red-hot Essendon at Central Reserve in a two-day clash starting on Saturday. A win would secure Monash a finals berth.

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