EAP run out of steam against Qld

THE East Asia Pacific side’s chance of finishing higher than fourth place at the Australian Country Cricket Championships took a dive as Queensland Country defeated them by four wickets in Geelong yesterday in a 50-over match.
After a morale-boosting victory over Victory Country on Monday, which saw Chris Amini scoring a century as well as other PNG players making runs, the EAP batting order could not kick on and were bundled out for a paltry 138 runs in 39.2 overs.
But keeping his form with the willow was Assad Vala who made 51 runs – the only substantial score on an otherwise dreary score sheet.
Last-game hero Amini (2)could not reproduce his previous fine form while the normally fiesty Jack Vare (8) was also an early casualty of the Queenslanders’pace attack.
EAP captain Andrew Mansale offered some laboured resistance with a dogged 24 off 71 balls.
But the remaining EAP wickets were sold cheaply with  a variety of dismissals effected by the opposition.
The chief destroyers with the ball for Queensland were Brendon Jones (3-28), Ben O’Connell (3-16) and Matt Burton (2-20).
Set 139 for victory Queensland (6-140) motored to the target in 36.2 overs with the loss of six wickets.
Opener Todd Schloss made 38 to get his team off to a strong start while middle order batsman Sean Fitzsimmons finished unbeaten on 42.
EAP off-spinner Mahuru Dai, who returned figures of 3 for 36 off his allotted 10 overs, was the pick of the Pacific side.
In other results from the second last round of matches Western Australia (9-223) defeated Northern Territory (204), ACT (9-218) beat South Australia (136) and Victoria  (5-201) upset tournament favourites NSW (200).
The ACCC ladder not including latest results: NSW 27, EAP 17, Australian Capital Territory 16, Queensland 13, South Australia 12, South Australia 11, Northern Territory 6 and Victoria 0.