By Jackson Russell
Wallan suffered its second T20 loss of the season, going down by 25 runs to Rupertswood at home on Saturday.
The Magpies won the toss and sent Rupertswood, getting off to a good start with the ball as Mitchell Van De Duim dismissed opener David McDonald for a duck.
Rupertswood rallied and put on a 101-run second-wicket partnership between Paul McGarry (43) and Jordan Curran (52).
McGarry and Curran fell one after the other, bowled by Jai Weshal and Van De Duim, respectively, with Rupertswood 3/101.
Joel Muir (22) and captain Andrew Pizaro (18*) were able to get the visitors to 4/140 when Muir became Van De Duim’s third victim.
Rupertswood finished their innings at 4/156.
Wallan made a solid start to its run chase, with openers Kieran Atkin (35) and Ryan Cumberland (20) putting together a 28-run opening partnership.
Captain Brad Regan was bowled by Pizaro for five, followed by Atkin to have Wallan 3/69.
After a 19-run partnership between Lachie Shinn-Mahony (9) and Spencer Whittingham (14), wickets fell with consistency through Wallan’s middle order which fell to 7/103.
Wallan was unable to chase down Rupertswood’s total, finishing its innings at 9/131.
Wallan coach Chris Vecchie said the side let itself down in the field.
“It was a big game for us to try to hold our position in the top four. We bowled first and let ourselves down with the ground fielding and gave them a few extra runs,” he said.
“When it was our turn to bat, we were confident we could chase that down.
“We got off to a great start but when the first two wickets fell, we couldn’t put any decent partnerships together and as the run rate gets higher, more wickets fall.
“We gave them too many runs in the field and made it hard for us to chase it down. Once you get too far behind the run rate, it’s hard to catch up.”
Wallan sits sixth on the ladder with four wins, four losses and two draws and will take on seventh-placed Macedon in an away two-dayer starting on Saturday.
“We’re back to the two-day format and we’ve got four games left. We’ve dropped out of the four so every game’s a big game for us and we’re all looking forward to the challenge,” Vecchie said.
