Breakers win the Under-18 Bushrangers State Championships

The Breakers defended their total of 232, with the Highlands only able to muster 197.

Metropolitan South East Bayside won the toss and elected to bat.

Central Highlands got an early breakthrough as Nathan Murphy was caught by Jakob Tidyman for four with the score on just five.

The early wicket brought Damon Egan to the crease who was in form following two consecutive half-centuries and had a tournament average of 51.

Egan continued his good run of form and shared a 65-run partnership with Edward Newman which came to an end as Newman was trapped lbw for 35 by Tom Le Lievre.

Wicketkeeper Christopher Diggle joined Egan and the pair formed another successful partnership, putting on 103 before Diggle was bowled for 61 by Harli Givvens.

Egan fell soon after as he was caught by Matthew Underwood off Givvens for 61 with the score on 194.

Metroplitan Bayside then lost regular wickets and collapsed to 232 all out after 49.5 overs.

Jack Lalor was the pick of the Central Highlands’ bowlers claiming 3-36 while Bailey Van de Heuvel took 3-41 and Givvens 3-49.

Thomas Rogers and Tidyman started strongly in pursuit of 232 as they shared an opening stand of 62 before opening bowler George Fry had Tidyman caught Egan for 34.

This brought skipper Blake Thomson to the crease but he could muster only ten runs before he was caught by Diggle off Jackson Noske with the score on 91 after 16 overs.

Underwood joined Rogers in the middle and the pair shared a useful 31 run partnership before Underwood was caught by Newman off Cameron Watts for 17.

As in the first innings, wickets fell regularly although on this occasion, there was more resistance shown by the batsman.

Though this innings lacked a second fruitful partnership and the team was unable to build on the good platform and Central Highlands were all out for 197 in 44.1 overs.

This saw South East Bayside win the match by 35 runs.

The pick of Bayside’s bowlers was legspinner Watts who took 3-39 from his ten overs while Jayce Morgan also played a useful role as he bowled four overs and claimed 2-13.

Damon Egan was named Player of the Match for his 77 and he also took the final wicket to seal the victory and finished with figures of 1-21 from 6.1 overs.

Egan was also one of two Players of the Championships as he finished with 230 runs at the impressive average of 57.50 and claimed 13 wickets at the equally impressive average of 6.46.

Sam Whibley, who represented Gippsland Pride, was the other Player of the Championships, after scoring 211 runs at the remarkable average of 70.33.