Haisman Shield | Waaia sends Katandra home packing in close contest

“We probably made the win harder than it needed to be…we had a bit of a characteristic middle order collapse, but Seb Moore and Sam Trower battled hard put the game beyond reasonable doubt in the end,” Waaia captain Brayden Carey said.

“It was an ugly win for us in the end, but we take them as they come and try to keep on winning.”

The Eagles won the toss and elected to bat, losing three quick wickets to Waaia’s wily attack before Jedd Wright (13) and Hadleigh Sirett (38) afforded Katandra some stability in the middle order.

However, with Eagles’ bats unable to convert starts to scores, the runs began to dry up.

Katandra would eventually settle for 9/143 as Ryleigh Shannon (33 not out) swung hard batting at nine to steer his side’s total from substandard to satisfactory.

Mitch Cleeland (3-44) and Liam Evans (2-29) were damaging with ball in hand.

The Bombers then pressed hard from the off, with Evans clubbing a sturdy 47 to see Waaia need just 74 runs for victory with nine men still in the shed.

Cue the collapse Carey spoke of.

Katandra’s key threat Wright had the ball dancing as he kicked off Waaia’s downwards spiral which saw the Bombers lose four wickets in the space of just 13 runs.

It was left up to Moore (29) and Trower (15) to anchor the hosts, and once the winning runs were made, Carey and co were left to breathe out a huge sigh of relief.

“Early wins in Cricket Shepparton are huge; you can’t let your guard down in such an even competition,” Carey said.

“In situations like those, you can find yourself relying on your eight, nine and 10 batters to get the job done and that’s exactly what happened on Saturday.”