New-look Vics falter as WA end winless streak

Western Australia have opened their account for the Women's National Cricket League season, cruising to a six-wicket win over an understrength Victoria at the WACA Ground.

After capturing the key Victoria wicket of Elyse Villani for 14, Western Australia bowled the tourists out for 155, before Amy Edgar (47) and Mathilda Carmichael (47no) saw their team home with a whopping 22.5 overs to spare.

On face value, the previously winless bottom-ranked team defeating the unbeaten ladder leaders by such a large margin would appear a major upset.

Context, however, paints a clearer picture of a match where WA might have been expected to come out on top, regardless of their form heading into the clash.

Victoria, with six wins from six matches, went into the match without their seven Australian players. Six of those – captain Meg Lanning, Ellyse Perry, Sophie Molineux, Georgia Wareham, Tayla Vlaeminck and Molly Strano – are in quarantine in New Zealand, while the other, allrounder Annabel Sutherland, will miss the rest of the season through injury.

Of the XI whom took the field on Thursday, only five had played this season to date; of those, just two – league leading run scorer Elyse Villani and former Irish allrounder Kim Garth – had played key roles with bat or ball through those six previous victories.

For the remainder of the XI, the match presented critical time in the middle, given Victoria have already secured their place in the final on March 27 and now urgently need to gel ahead of that match against a yet-to-be-determined opponent.

There were three debutants, with left-arm spinner Sophie Day, off-spinner Ella Hayward and veteran allrounder Bhavi Devchand playing their first matches for Victoria, as the tourists opted to set Western Australia a target.

Villani made an aggressive start, striking two boundaries off the first over of the game, but was subsequently tied down by the WA pace attack before being bowled by Taneale Peschel (4-37) for a 27-ball 14.

Fellow opener Makinley Blows (six from 27), first drop Devchand (one from six) and No.4 Anna Lanning (four from eight) were dismissed cheaply, but Garth (51 from 87) dug in, showing her all-round capabilities to score her first half-century of the season.

A handy 46-ball 29 from Lucy Cripps, playing just her second game for Victoria, helped push the visitors beyond the 150-run mark, before leg-spinner Alana King (2-26) claimed the final wicket against her former team in the 49th over.

Defending the low total was never going to be easy, but Victoria gave themselves hope when WA's leading run-scorer Chloe Piparo (five) was brilliantly caught by Lanning at gully off the bowling of Courtney Neale.

Cripps (2-25 from two overs), while expensive, picked up the key wickets of Ashley Day (12) and Nicole Bolton (27) to leave Western Australia shaky at 3-57, but Edgar and Carmichael took control, with their 97-run stand only broken with their team two runs from victory.

"It was really lovely to finally get a win on the board," Peschel said after the match. "I think the bowlers all worked really well together.

"We always look to get 10 wickets in a game, so to take the full 10 wickets was a really good reward for us.

"(Amy) Edgar has been working really hard in the nets as well and making sure she's able to go on in the innings, and she looks like she has quite a bit of freedom out there.

"I think finishing the season two from two would be really nice."

The teams will meet again at the same venue on Saturday, with Victoria looking to settle ahead of the final, and Western Australia out to end their season on a positive note.