Tasmania have moved back to third on the Bupa Sheffield Shield table with an eight-wicket thrashing of former pacesetters Queensland at Blundstone Arena.
CLICK HERE for full scorecard
Set 161 for outright victory after bowling the Bulls out for 215 in their second innings on Monday morning when Luke Butterworth (4-45) wrapped things up, the Tigers had little trouble reaching their target.
Fresh from top-scoring with 82 in the first innings, days after scoring an unbeaten century against the same opposition in the Ryobi Cup, Test opener Ed Cowan continued his strong recent form with another score of 77 not out.
Skipper George Bailey provided good support with an unbeaten 57, the pair adding 118 for the third wicket to ensure there was no collapse following the losses of Steve Cazzulino (nine) and Alex Doolan (13), which had left the hosts at 2-45.
Steve Magoffin grabbed the early breakthrough and finished with 1-28 from 11 overs while Ben Cutting continued his amazing match with 1-45 from 10.1 but Cowan and Bailey added 65 from just 61 balls after lunch as they raced to the target, perhaps mindful of forecast showers.
Tasmania's win means they now have 28 points and are only four adrift of new leaders Western Australia (32), with Queensland (30) now sitting second and Victoria (24) also still in the hunt for the final.
The Bulls have now gone three games without picking up any points after they had won their first five games outright and are now in danger of not even making the decider after they had looked certainties to host it two months ago.
Cutting finished on the losing side but was unlucky not to take out man-of-the-match honours after he followed his top score of 79 not out in the first innings by leading the way again with the bat with an unbeaten 66.
His first knock helped save Queensland from a disastrous 8-89 as they went on to make 205, while things were looking almost as bleak second time around at 8-118 before he helped push the total along to 215.
And as well as his second-innings wicket, he also grabbed 3-73 in the first innings.
But Jackson Bird picked up the man-of-the-match gong after claiming a career-best 6-62 in the first innings and a match haul of 9-133.
