GIPPSLAND BOYS FEATURE AT IMPARJA CUP
A squad of thirteen (13) players headed to Alice Springs in February to represent Victoria in the Imparja Cup - the national tournament for Indigenous players. Barry Firebrace captained the side which had our own Adrian Briar from Traralgon playing.Victoria's first four games were 20/20's played over 2 days. Their first was against NSW who beat them by 20 runs. Coming off a loss Victoria performed well against ACT to beat them in a nail biting last over win. Adrian Briar took 1 wicket for 3 runs off only 1 over. The next day it was South Australia first up and Victoria couldn't repeat their last performance losing again by 20 runs. Later that day they played NT. Victoria made a respectable 154 and with the help of Adrian Briar's 3 wickets from 1.2 overs, they bowled NT out for only 84. The first of the 40 over matches was agaisnt Queensland who had not lost a game yet. Queensland batted first and half way through the match Victoria looked in control, bowling them out for a very modest total of 154. But Queenslands bowling proved too strong tearing apart Victoria's batting line up bowling them out for just 27. Licking their wounds from their previous defeat, Victoria smashed 219 from 40 overs to put them in pole position half way through the game against Western Australia. WA did their best to try and hand Victoria their fourth defeat of the tournement but fell short 20 runs losing to Victoria for the first time in Imparja cup history. Going into the last game Victoria played Tasmania who needed to win to play against Queensland in the final. Victoria batted first and reached a very defendable total of 188 off their alotted overs. Tasmania just managed to reach Victoria's total in the last over of the game with 5 wickets in hand. In the final Queensland batted first and smashed a huge 202 against Tasmania who could only manage to scratch out 115 runs before being bowled out. Leaving Queensland to be the 2009 Imparja Cup winners.
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