Vics sink further into the Gabba abyss

The 'Gabba has long represented a graveyard for Victorian teams, and so it proved again tonight as the Bushrangers plunged to a heavy eight wicket defeat in their Mercantile Mutual Cup clash with Queensland in Brisbane. As part of a continuation of a miserable run of outs which has seen them fail to win a match at this venue in nearly eleven years, the visitors were indeed completely humbled in this contest, surrendering with almost eighteen overs still left to be bowled.

For much of the game, the only real threat to a Queensland win was some unsettled weather. Heavy drizzle forced the start to be delayed and then intervened again one over into the evening session, sending the players from the field for a period of thirty minutes. Even the Bulls' forfeiture of one over for bowling too slowly in the first session of the match did not prove a problem even in the remotest sense of the term.

After captain Paul Reiffel won the toss and elected to bat, little went right for the Victorians. They were pinned to the wall by some wonderful bowling from Adam Dale (1/24 off 10 overs), Andy Bichel (2/35 off 8 overs) and Mike Kasprowicz (3/29 off 8.2 overs) and were never allowed to develop any rhythm. Opener Graeme Vimpani (2) was dismissed in just the third over of the game and his teammates joined him in the pavilion at regular intervals for the remainder of the afternoon. On a pitch that looked to be significantly more placid than the one used for the Pura Milk Cup match between the sides earlier this week, they were consistently unable to deal with the accuracy of the three pacemen and paid a heavy price.

To compound their plight, the visitors also lost two wickets in highly unusual fashion - Laurie Harper (1) hitting his wicket when he played back and tried to force a Kasprowicz delivery through the off side, and Reiffel (4) himself being stumped off a wide from off spinner Dale Turner. Even champion leg spinner Shane Warne (22) could not have enjoyed the whole experience too much, constant heckling and hooting from a crowd keen to show its support for local player and recent Warne adversary, Scott Muller, virtually accompanying his every move on the field.

Although the arrival of the early evening rain, and the almost immediate loss of Jimmy Maher (3) upon the resumption, raised the spectre of an alteration to the state of the match, the Bulls did not encounter much resistance thereafter. Indeed, their pursuit of the 194 runs required for victory represented little more than a canter. Matthew Hayden (78*) led the way and was well complemented by Stuart Law (60) and a brutal Andrew Symonds (45*) as he hoisted his team to third place on the Cup table. It was a sign of just how gloomy things had become for the Victorians that even Warne (1/43 off 6 overs) himself was treated with total disdain.