Grade Cricket

[Armchair expert]

Massive collapse by Adelaide sees West Torrens through to the final.

[wedgetail]

7 down, 3 to go. Is the premiership now a race for 5?

Adelaide made light work of Kensington's batting line up, bowling them our for 131, defending their 253, to put them right in the mix.

Sturt slogged it out all day with the bat (78 & 8/199), to avoid giving Port Adelaide an outright result after Port declared their 1st innings closed at 7/198.

Woodville declared at their overnight total of 5/301. All of East Torrens' batsmen chipped in to chase down the total, 5/302, with 5 overs to spare.

West Torrens declared at 9/289 last week and had both Tea Tree Gully's openers dismissed early, but despite keeping wickets in hand from that point on, TTG left their run too late. 14 overs with the 2nd new ball saw TTG lose 4/54 and fall 20 runs short, finishing up with a draw at 8/269. Frustration for both teams, one of which will probably see themselves in Division 2 next season.

It was West Torrens 4th Draw for the season, in a quirk of the points system, they have lost less games than the ladder leading Kensington, but sit firmly in the relegation zone with three rounds remaining.

Kensington 100
Port Adelaide 95
Sturt 85
Adelaide 80
_____________
East Torrens 75
Tea Tree Gully 45
West Torrens 40
Woodville 20

Round 8
Sturt vs East Torrens
West Torrens vs Kensington
Tea Tree Gully vs Port Adelaide
Adelaide vs Woodville

Woodville have appealed their recent loss to West Torrens at Henley citing a 'damper pitch' on day 2 when they were chasing West Torrens' 202. At stumps they were 2/50ish on the first day and at one stage 3/90ish and in the box seat on the second day. It has already taken 2 lengthy meetings, numerous witness statements and detailed statistical analysis of batting averages over the season etc and STILL no outcome. Interestingly, WT was 4/54 the previous week on a supposedly better wicket. I could be wrong but believe that West Torrens has no involvement in the preparation of the pitch as it is done by an independent party.

[Tony Clifton]

Surely that's the domain of the umpires?

They are the impartial ones who saw the pitch both weeks and should decide whether they think anything untoward happened