Hilton Cartwright steers WA to third straight one-day title
Hilton Cartwright has steered WA to another one-day cup title with victory over NSW in Sydney. Photo: Getty
Hilton Cartwright and Joel Paris have powered Western Australia to a five-wicket win over NSW in the one-day cup final, securing a historic third straight title.
The recent dominant force in domestic cricket, WA set up its latest limited-overs victory when it skittled the hosts for just 169 at Sydney’s Cricket Central on Sunday.
Left-arm quick Paris (4-21) led the rout in his first one-day appearance of the season, with Ashton Agar (2-35) and AJ Tye (2-39) also claiming multiple wickets.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing in the run chase as WA was given a huge scare, reduced to 3-30 in the eighth over.
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Blues quicks Ben Dwarshuis, Jackson Bird and Jack Edwards all claimed early wickets before Cartwright (73 not out) joined opener Josh Philippe (42) at the crease and steadied the innings.
Cartwright stepped up with his first half-century of the season – the eighth of his career – to lead all scorers and steer the visitors safely past the victory target with Nick Hobson (26 not out).
WA reached 5-170 with more than 16 overs to spare when Cartwright blasted the third six of his 80-ball innings.
He also hit seven fours.
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WA is only the second state to claim a hat-trick of one-day titles and first in more than two decades, since NSW did it for the second time in 2001-03.
It was WA’s sixth one-day title in the past decade and a record-extending 17th overall since the competition began in 1969.
NSW was sent in to bat in Sunday’s final and reached a healthy position when top scorer Oliver Davies (51) and Moises Henriques (32) put on 74 for the fourth wicket.
But captain Henriques fell when Agar claimed a sharp return catch off his own bowling, triggering a collapse.
NSW lost its last seven wickets for just 34 runs and was bowled out in just 42 overs.
Davies hit the only six of the Blues’ innings when he hoisted Cooper Connolly (1-41) over deep midwicket and left a pair of WA fielders searching for the ball in thick scrub surrounding the venue.
WA will go in search of more silverware when its Sheffield Shield campaign resumes in March, having won the four-day competition in each of the past two seasons.
-AAP
