Sydenham-Hillside smash Newport-Digman to claim VTCA Division 2 premiership

Sydenham-Hillside’s march up the VTCA ranks continues as the club breezed past Newport-Digman to claim the Division 2 premiership.

Sydneham- Hillside celebrates its premiership.

Sydenham-Hillside continued its march up the VTCA ranks with the Division 2 premiership.

The Storm romped to a third flag in four seasons with a comfortable 2-0 grand final series win over Newport-Digman on the weekend.

An eight-wicket win on Saturday was followed by a 10-wicket triumph on Saturday to wrap up a dominant campaign that saw the club lose just two matches.

Sydenham-Hillside coach Geoff Pretty said the club was proud of its progression since crossing from the North West Metro association in 2016-17.

“It’s a massive achievement for the club, winning three premierships in four years, and stepping up a division each year,” he said.

“You’re not just dominating one competition you’re actually moving up a class every year.

“It means continued progression, the benefit of the VTCA is when you win a premiership you get promoted.

“It’s a feather in the cap of the club that there’s a lot of young up-and-coming talent coming through at the club.

“It’s great for people that have been around the club for a long time and just rewards for people that work really hard like Bobby (Kunesevic) and Warren (Hackney) and a lot of people behind the scenes.”

Unfortunately, captain Hackney missed the premiership due to a groin injury suffered in the semi-final.

Ben Green took on the leadership and produced a dominant series, hitting 50 not out in Game 1 and backing it up with 63 not out in Game 2 to claim the grand final medal.

“Ben’s (been captain) before, I think he was captain last year, so it wasn’t foreign territory to him,” Pretty said.

“He had a great series, he’s a great player and a hell of a nice bloke.

“His family is well entrenched in the Sydenham-Hillside Cricket Club, so there’s a pretty strong tradition there.”

Newport-Digman won the toss and batted in Game 1 at Hillside Reserve, reaching 145 on the back of Tyler Johnston’s 44, while Alex Barlas took 3-19 and Shehan De Silva 3-28.

Sydenham-Hillside were in early trouble at 2-9 before Green and Gayashan Weerasekara (80 not out) combined for a match-winning 139-run partnership.

Newport-Digman struggled to put runs on the board after winning the toss again in Game 2, finishing 9-132 as De Silva picked up 4-14.

Green and opening partner Ishan Dombagaha Pathirage (55 not out) never gave the visitors a sniff, wrapping up the chase with seven overs to spare.

“The scoreboard says it was (easy) but it wasn’t as easy as you think,” Pretty said.

“Full credit to them, they never threw in the towel and had us in a bit of trouble early on Saturday, we were 2-9.

“We were lucky to establish a partnership after that, Ben and Gayashan batted brilliantly chasing a tough score – it certainly wasn’t a gimme.”

The Storm move up to Division 1 in 2022-23, confident they have the talent to compete at any level.

Green finishes the campaign with a club-leading 544 runs at 54.40 as well as 20 wickets at 15.60 a piece and must be in the conversation for the McNamara Medal.

Dombagaha Pathirage knocked up 519 runs and Weerasekara tallied 422 runs at 60.29, while Tim Grech led the attack with 27 wickets at an average of 12.33, closely followed by De Silva with 24 scalps.

VTCA: CAROLINE SPRINGS CLIMBS MOUNTAIN TO FLAG

LEADER: GET YOUR LOCAL CRICKET NEWS HERE

GDCA: FLAWLESS ROMSEY ENDS 20-YEAR WAIT

Pretty said the club would enjoy its premiership before turning its attention to next season.

“I haven’t got that far ahead, we’re still enjoying the moment,” he said.

“We’ll attack the planning for next season in the next few weeks, pre-season doesn’t take long to come around again.

“We’ll sit back and enjoy what we’ve achieved and then in the fullness of time we’ll ask what’s next, what do we need to do and how to we tackle that.

“The club is excited by the challenge and we’re looking forward to it.”

CAN VTCA BRIDESMAID BREAK GRAND FINAL CURSE?

Is this the season perennial VTCA Division 2 bridesmaid Newport-Digman breaks its premiership drought … not if Sydenham-Hillside has anything to say about it.

The McNamara Shield decider sees the Bulls return to the grand final stage for the third season in a row as they seek a long-awaited promotion.

In stark contrast, the Storm have surged up the VTCA ranks since entering in 2016-17, winning consecutive premierships and promotions in 2018-19 and 2019-20 before losing a semi-final to Newport-Digman last season.

Newport-Digman captain Matt Shiell knows his team will need something special to break its grand final hoodoo.

“We’re over the moon to be in our third grand final in a row,” he said.

James Muirhead will line up for Newport-Digman.

“We understand that we’re coming up against Sydenham, who are such a strong side and probably been the benchmark for the past two years, so there’s no doubt we go in as underdogs.

“We’re excited for the challenge, we’ve both had good seasons, and we hope we can play our best cricket to give ourselves a chance.

“We’re not shying away from the fact we’ve lost the last two grand finals and a semi when we finished on top. Perhaps we may have missed an opportunity to two.

“To be honest, the feeling among the group, everyone is really calm and excited about the weekend.”

Sydenham enters the three-game grand final series as warm favourites having claimed the minor premiership and a seven-wicket win over their rival earlier this season.

However, captain Warren Hackney said nothing could be taken for granted come finals.

“We’re taking confidence out of finishing top and beating them in the season but finals, as we know, is a different ball game and we’ve just got to back what we’ve been doing all season,” he said.

“It should be a good grand final series, one and two, the best two teams all season, so we’re looking forward to a good contest.

“We’ve only been on turf for six seasons and we’ve worked our way up with a couple of premierships.

“It’s only our second season in Division 2, we lost to Newport last year in the semi, so it gives us a bit of extra motivation to turn the tables on them.

“For us, hopefully, it’s the continuation of a journey through the grades up to where we hope to be in the not too distant future.”

Plain statistics would give Newport-Digman the edge, having finished the home-and-away season with the most wickets and second most runs.

However, while Sydenham-Hillside ranked fourth for total runs and second in wickets, it lost almost 40 fewer wickets, boasts three of the top five run-scorers and conceded the fewest runs in the competition.

Ishan Dombagaha Pathirage, Ben Green and Gayashan Weerasekara finished second, fourth and fifth respectively, while Michael Formosa was Newport-Digman’s best at 11th overall.

Storm paceman Tim Grech finished the regular season with the second most wickets with Bulls skipper Shiell just behind in third.

Hackney said the club’s strength was strangling teams with the ball and making life easier for its batters.

“Our bowling unit has worked really well all season to keep teams to a chaseable score, no team has really got away from us.

“Our top order has done the job, if one or two fail on a given day, others have stepped up, so we’re pretty pleased with how our batting has gone.”

However, Newport-Digman does have an ace up its sleeve.

Former Australia and Victoria spinner James Muirhead joined the club in January and has taken 10 wickets in seven matches.

Shiell said the strength of his bowling group was its consistency.

VTCA: FIRST-TIME SENIOR DIV CHAMPION WILL BE CROWNED

LEADER: GET YOUR LOCAL CRICKET NEWS HERE

NWMCA: PASCOE VALE CENTRAL CLAIMS FLAG QUAD-TRICK

“One of our strengths is our even attack,” he said.

“On any given day we’ve got different guys that can pop up and take wickets and bowl tight spells.

“Since the addition of James Muirhead after Christmas, a former international, Victoria and Big Bash player, he’s brought a lot to the group.”

All three grand final matches, if needed, will be played at Sydenham-Hillside’s Hillside Reserve.