Warriors claim remarkable win as Tigers stumble

Western Australian medium pacers Damien Martyn and Kade Harvey have combined to lift their team to a two-run victory over Tasmania in a thrilling Mercantile Mutual Cup encounter between the teams here at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart today. It was a stunning triumph which not only capped another of the cliff-hanger finishes that have loomed large over this season's competition but which also came after the home team had appeared to be well in command.

More than anything else, this will be remembered as a day of heartbreak for the Tasmanians. Plagued by a poor history of results in one-day cricket, and a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, they allowed both maladies to come back and curse them again. Through long periods of the match, they had seemingly held the upper hand; by its conclusion, though, success had escaped their clutches once more.

"We should have won the game," bemoaned home skipper Jamie Cox following the defeat. "They didn't actually win the game; we lost it."

"We had two blokes playing nicely. But for some reason, we didn't keep our heads ... which is really disappointing."

Having amassed what could be described as no more than a competitive score of 8/246 from their fifty overs (on a beautifully true pitch) and then watched as the Tasmanian batsmen made exemplary progress toward the target, the Warriors, by contrast, could barely believe their good fortune. With their opponents only four wickets down and requiring just twenty-six runs off the final six overs, the act of revival engineered by Martyn (2/12 off three overs) and Harvey (1/67 from ten) was little short of spectacular. They conjured a remarkable turnaround which saw Shaun Young (70) and Dene Hills (20) hit catches high into the leg side and permitted only a tentative twenty-three runs to be added to the total. The Western Australians' jubilation by the end was about as palpable as the gravity of the Tasmanians' stumble.

"It was a bit tense, wasn't it?" beamed Martyn after the match. "There wasn't any plan, really; luck was on my side."

"We know they're young guys," he said of the inexperienced pairing of Andrew Dykes (5* off ten deliveries) and Scott Kremerskothen (6* from eight balls) that was left to attempt to lift the Tigers to victory as the wheels rapidly began to come off around them.

"It's hard batting at the end anyway and once we got the two experienced guys (Young and Hills), we felt we were a real big chance," opined the current international one-day player.

Martyn's two wickets and Harvey's concession of six runs from his closing spell of two overs allowed them to walk away with most of the individual plaudits. But the visitors also owed an enormous debt of gratitude to youngster Simon Katich and the experienced duo of Tom Moody and Jo Angel.

It had been Katich (73) and Moody (68) who had provided the batting impetus to an innings that had otherwise been devoid of momentum through the morning. Until finally the victim of a mistaken decision to attempt a fourth run from an off drive in the forty-sixth over, the left handed Katich continued a love affair with Bellerive that has seen him amass runs here voraciously over recent seasons. Particularly strong through the off side, his driving from the front foot was a feature.

At the other end in their rapid-fire stand of 125 for the fifth wicket, Moody was also in sparkling form. He was more productive off the back foot than his partner but also played a number of crunching cover drives. Crucial in the final analysis was the duo's capacity to capitalise on a bizarre decision from Cox to throw part-time spinner Hills the ball in the forty-fourth over. In such a tight match, the twenty-one runs that were smashed from Hills' six deliveries of naked turn assumed critical importance.

Around the dismissals of Adam Gilchrist (5), Ryan Campbell (13), Justin Langer (17) and Martyn (31) through the opening half of the morning session, the Tasmanians had in fact held a very firm upper hand initially. Leading an attack which rebounded strongly from the hammering that it received at the hands of New South Wales last week, Young (1/36 off ten overs) and teenage paceman Brett Geeves (1/23 off seven) stood out, but the Tigers' general accuracy and control was impressive throughout the early stages.

Although unable to make any more than one incision - the caught and bowled of Michael DiVenuto (13) - Angel (1/25 from ten overs) later produced his own brilliant spell of bowling, without which the Warriors would well and truly have been on their way to defeat. Relying on impeccable length, the veteran right hander conceded a mere nine runs from the opening seven overs of the afternoon at the River End. At a time when his teammates were being savaged by the likes of Young (70) and Cox (61), it was a performance which did enough to keep the Western Australians in with a glimmer of a chance. And in the end, the lifeline that he had thus thrown his team proved decisive.