Point Cook was left red-faced after a spectacular second innings collapse saw it lose outright to Deer Park-Ardeer in Victorian Turf Cricket Association west B1 at John McLeod Oval on Saturday.
The Warriors had maximum points in their sights, set just 46 in the second dig for an outright result, but crashed and burned to be out for just 28 in 16 overs, gifting a massive 11 premiership points to the home side.
Warriors player-coach Travis Bean was at a loss to explain how his top-of-the-ladder side could perform such an about-face after dominating the competition in the previous four matches.
“I’ve played a lot of cricket and I’ve never seen a game like that before,” he said. “There were 40 wickets lost for less than 200 runs.
“I don’t have an explanation for it other than what I said to the players: ‘Let’s draw a line under this game and move on to next week’.
“They got on such a roll and we were so under the pump in the second innings that we just couldn’t recover.”
Deer Park-Ardeer used only two bowlers in the rout, but only one might have done the trick.
James Bonnici ran through the Warrior line-up to finish with 8-15 off eight overs.
It was not all bad news for the Warriors – they still managed to somehow eke out eight points from the game to keep their spot at the top of the ladder.
Thanks for that goes to Troy Semmens, who finished with 12 wickets for the match.
“He’s our number one bowler and just runs in and does everything you want him to do,” Bean said.
Elsewhere in west B1, Wyndhamvale (7-134dec) cruised to first-innings points over Footscray ANA (70 and 129), while Seabrook (6-191) beat Barkly Street Uniting (176).
In senior division, Hoppers Crossing (118 and 6-135) lost on first innings to Brighton District (9-133dec and 8-93).
