BALLARAT-Redan has had another frustrating loss in Ballarat Cricket Association firsts.
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The Two Swords again batted admirably, but 271 at the City Oval was well short of Golden Point’s 4-385 in the round four two-day encounter on Saturday.
This has largely been the story of the season for Ballarat-Redan, which going into Sunday’s two twenty20 games – each offering four premiership points – had had just the one win.
Ballarat-Redan has not batted badly, making 180-plus (250-plus twice) in each of the losses. Just as in this game, the Combine has not been able to get the job done with the ball – leaking far too many runs.
Chasing down Golden Point, or even getting near it, was always going to be a huge ask.
Ballarat-Redan needed a strong start to give it any hope and this did not happen - not even against a patched up Golden Point attack missing the injured Simon Ogilvie and Dan White, who between them last season took 52 wickets.
Making his first appearance at this level since a once-off at the end of last season, Matt Swards stepped up and made an immediate impact to have Ballarat-Redan on the back foot.
He claimed the prize scalps of Allister Edmends and Andrew Taylor to have the home team 3-24.
While Ballarat-Redan was able to stop the rot, it was not able to score fast enough to threaten Golden Point.
Nothing could be taken away from the batting of Jayden Hayes and all-rounder Chris Egan though. They denied the Pointies for a couple of hours to put on 103 runs.
Hayes again showed he is one of the competition's emerging young batsmen with 88 (9 fours, 1 six) - his second half century of the season. He faced 150 balls in 164 minutes.
Egan contributed 40 (4 fours) off 104 balls.
Hayes and Zac Steenhuis, 45 (six fours) then added 45 for the fifth wicket and Michael Snaith reached 36no to ensure the tail wagged.
Sammy Jayantha utlimately broke the back of the resistence, dismissing Hayes and Jenkins on his way to 4-44 off 17 overs.
Swards finished with 2-42, while Andrew Warrick picked up 2-55.
North Ballarat has a tale not unlike Ballarat-Redan when it comes to losses. The Roosters are without a win in the opening four two-day matches despite topping 200 runs three times.
Twenty20 review and scoreboards in The Courier on Tuesday.