Saturday afternoon’s clash between the YGC Piranhas and the Aussie Pirates was set to be a thrilling final between two teams who were eerily similar on the surface.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
However, astute observers might have noticed that the Pirates were yet to lose a match to the Piranhas this season, and they had no intention of bucking that trend in the final.
Outwardly, the teams were very similarly structured. Their brittle batting lineups tended to centre around a primary figure (Dan Poidevin for the Piranhas, Nick Pollack for the Pirates), and each team’s strength was its bowling attack.
So the questions that mattered in the final were: whose batters will go the distance? Which team will knuckle down and try to bat the overs?
The answer was, resoundingly, the Pirates.
After winning the toss and batting first on a pitch that was described as “up and down” by star player Nick Pollack, the Pirates eventually ground their way to a first innings score of 8/144.
“[It was] real good, we were happy with anything over a hundred,” Pollack said.
“I knew out there batting it was hard to score runs when they were bowling in good areas, so I knew we were a red-hot chance of defending that.”
The Piranhas’ captain, Rob Field, has commented in the past that his team tends to rely on the batting ability of Poidevin as the foundation for a score, however 144 proved to be one hurdle too many.
Poidevin played resiliently for 27, which bolstered the Piranhas and made an otherwise completely forgettable innings somewhat competitive, however the next highest score was five (shared between Daniel Kemp and the extras).
The Piranhas were unceremoniously bundled out for 49, to grant the Pirates victory by 95 runs.
The win for the Pirates breaks a longstanding tradition of unsuccessful finals campaigns, something which Pollack was glad to see the back of.
“It’s great. We probably should have won it more, but we’ve always lost in semis and put too much pressure on ourselves,” he said.
“It’s great to perform and get the monkey off our back.”