Swans denied T20 sweep

By Paul Pickering
CASEY-South Melbourne’s reliance on first-class stars Damien Wright, Peter Trego and Matthew Wade was in sharp focus during Saturday’s Twenty20 loss to Richmond in Colac.
Coach Mark Ridgway said his side – minus its star trio – were flattered by a 22-run loss in the Country Week fixture, which denied the Swans a clean sweep of the four-game T20 phase.
It also saw the Casey outfit dumped from Premier Cricket’s top eight ahead of a date with ladder-leading Carlton over the next fortnight.
It didn’t take long for Saturday’s game to start slipping through the Swans’ fingers, with Richmond opener Will Sheridan dropped on the second ball of the innings.
Sheridan (27 from 34 balls) and fellow Bushrangers squad member Ryan Carters (30 from 28) capitalised on the early let-off to produce a 53-run opening stand, before Carters holed out off the bowling of Jeff de Wet.
The Tigers didn’t quite launch from that base, but handy contributions from the likes of Andrew Delmont (27 from 23) helped guide them to a useful total of 7/142 from their 20 overs.
Casey’s left-arm orthodox spinner Clive Rose (2/19 from four overs) was again tidy, while young recruit Nathan Freitag (0/17 from four) was not overawed by the prospect of opening the bowling.
Strike force Jayde Herrick (2/30 from four) was expensive early, but returned to claim two late wickets.
The Swans then made a sluggish start to their chase, ambling to 2/30 from their first six overs. As Ridgway noted, “that made it a difficult chase thereafter”.
Jake Best (25 from 25) and Rob Elston (21 from 19) did their best to steady the ship, but the consistent loss of wickets left the Swans well behind the required run-rate.
Freitag (19 not out from 14) and Rose (15 from 13) landed a few blows in the dying overs, when the game was all but over.
Ridgway couldn’t help but lament the absence of his three “superstars”. Trego is on a pre-season camp in the Caribbean with his English county side, Somerset, while Wade played in the Bushrangers T20 loss to South Australia on Saturday night. Wright was also in Adelaide in his role as bowling coach for the Vics.
“It was a fairly young side we took there, but that’s no excuse,” Ridgway said.
“We dropped Sheridan three times, so we certainly weren’t at our best. I think the scoreline flattered us a bit.
“We just have to learn our lessons from these types of games, and if we can do that, we’ll keep improving.”
Suddenly, the Swans need to bounce back if they are to shore up a spot in the finals bracket.
And a win against Carlton at Princes Park would be no mean feat. The Blues have won four of their last five matches and sit one point clear atop the table.
“We’ll get Wright and Wade back this week, which will add some grunt,” Ridgway said on the eve of the second phase of two-day fixtures.
“And we’ve given Carlton a run for their money over the last two years, without actually beating them.
“I think we’ve got the ability to beat them, it’s just the mental toughness that I question a little bit. That’s where we seem to fall over, but those sorts of things will improve with years and experience, rather than words.”