ICC East Asia-Pacific Men’s team golden run continued in 2018 Toyota Australian Country Championships as they defeated South Australia Country by 4 wickets in their 2nd group phase match in the 50-overs format event.
South Australia won the toss and decided to bat first and manged to post 229/9 in their 50 overs with Peter Wilson top-scoring with 64 runs from 102 deliveries. Useful knocks of 42 runs each from Brodie O’Dea and Dion Stratford provided support to Wilson during the middle overs of the innings. Josh Pengelley (27 off 20) provided some late fireworks before EAP captain Patrick Matautaava picked up 3 wickets in a single over during the final overst to restrict South Australia from adding more runs to their total.
Matautaava (3/47) and Wesley Viralilu (3/26) were the pick of the bowlers for ICC EAP team with Jelany Chilia, Damian Ravu and Nalin Nipiko picking up a wicket apiece.
ICC EAP lost Joshua Rasu and Nalin Nipiko without contributing much but opener Jason Kila provided a good start at the other end with 38 runs from 46 deliveries before he was dismissed. Matautaava (21 off 19) didn’t last long either as EAP team were in a spot of bother at 84/4 at one stage.
Dogodo Bau (74 n.o off 99) once again produced a brilliant knock and along with Doriga Kipling (41 off 46), combined for a 80 runs partnership for the 5th wicket before EAP suffered 2 losses in the same over with Kipling and Ronald Tari getting out to bowling of Sean Nottle (2/39).
Damian Ravu (33 n.o off 27) played a quickfire innings and stayed unbeaten along with Dogodo Bau to take ICC EAP team to victory in the 46th over scoring 230 runs to win the match by 4 wickets.
ICC EAP team have so far won 5 matches (3 T20 and 2 50-overs) in the Championships so far, this being their best ever performance till date in the event, with more to come hopefully. They have now a realistic chance of reaching the final if they can continue their winning momentum in the next couple of rounds.
