Cricket can be a cruel game, moreso than other sports, dashing hopes without a second thought if a team is a fraction of a percentage point off.<\/p>\n
Rovers United Bruck were the latest in a long line of teams who have felt cricket\u2019s sting, succumbing to a six-wicket hammering by Benalla Bushrangers, ending their chances of making finals after a strong T20 campaign.<\/p>\n
The Bushrangers chased the Hawks\u2019 6\/150 with eight balls and six wickets remaining at the Gardens Oval on Saturday. <\/p>\n
\u201cPretty flat, we\u2019re pretty disappointed – I\u2019d go as far as saying the boys are pretty gutted,\u201d skipper Jeremy Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those things, we just didn\u2019t bowl or field well enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe batting was solid again, but we didn\u2019t generate enough chances, we didn\u2019t field well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got shown up, in these T20s that\u2019s what can happen \u2013 if you\u2019re five per cent off, anyone can beat anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
After winning the toss and batting, the Hawks lost their first wicket with only one run on the board, before Charith Perera (47 from 28) and Ryan Collier (27 from 36) piled on 68 runs to establish a workable foothold in the game.<\/p>\n
Jacob Schonafinger (21 from 16), Reid McNamara (18 from 16) and Jeremy Wilson (21 from 11) all chipped in to post a very competitive total.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got off to a really good start, we kept our dot balls to a minimum and were able to turn the strike over a bit,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe probably lacked some boundary-hitting at times, but 150 was what we wanted, we got it, so we can\u2019t really complain about the batting, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the job was done with the bat, the team needed to perform with the ball, and that\u2019s where cracks started to form.<\/p>\n
Schonafinger removed the dangerous Brayden Stepien for five in the third over, thanks to a sharp caught and bowled chance which may have been more about self-preservation, but the Bushrangers had another trick up their sleeve.<\/p>\n
Opener Jonty Priest was joined at the crease by Vishal Sharma, who would crack a half century off 19 balls to take the game away from RUB.<\/p>\n
Sharma piled on the runs rapidly with a display of pure boundary hitting, exemplified by the sixth over, which Sharma took for 20 runs off Ryan Barnes, all either rolling to the rope or sailing meters over it.<\/p>\n
Priest (44* from 47) would carry his bat through the innings, while James Carboon (31 off 23) and Dylan Barber (17 off 12) did the work at the other end to chase the total off 18.4 overs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we bowled too badly to Vishal, he just came out and just went off his head,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s as clean hitting I\u2019ve seen in quite a while – from pretty much ball one, he was hitting sixes halfway up the trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe gave them a really good platform, and from there Jonty and Jimmy Carboon were able to knock the strike around and get the job done.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you play T20s, one bloke can really steal the show, and that\u2019s what Vishal did \u2013 all credit to him and all credit to Benalla, they were just too good for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The weekend\u2019s results across the board spelled the end of the line for the Hawks in the T20 format, finishing third overall.<\/p>\n
Wilson said the focus would turn back to the one-day competition, resuming in January, in which the Hawks are undefeated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll lick our wounds and learn from it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first year, a lot of the boys haven\u2019t played T20s before, so we\u2019ll learn from it, we\u2019ll get better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll have a couple of weeks off now, we\u2019ll come back after Christmas and get stuck into the one-dayers where we\u2019re sitting on top.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cricket can be a cruel game, moreso than other sports, dashing hopes without a second thought if a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-346843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}