South Australia 3 for 245 (Weatherald 106*, Lehmann 87, Edwards 2-66) beat New South Wales 241 (Hughes 79, Zampa 3-37, Sayers 2-52) by seven wickets
A sparkling century by Jake Weatherald and a strong captaincy debut by Jake Lehmann drove South Australia to a bonus-point victory over New South Wales in the domestic limited-overs match at the WACA Ground.
The Redbacks were able to keep the NSW innings in check most of the afternoon, after Chadd Sayers made a pair of early incisions and Adam Zampa followed up with his own share of wickets, including the dismissal of Moises Henriques with his very first ball of the domestic season.
Australia's Twenty20 gloveman Alex Carey and capped international batsman Callum Ferguson were both dismissed early in SA's pursuit, but Weatherald's crisp strokeplay was augmented by Lehmann's combination of aggression and invention across a partnership worth 171. While the Blues' persistent use of the short ball belatedly paid off with Lehmann's wicket, by then the Redbacks pair had scored so freely via the pull shot that they were on course for an extra point for reaching the target inside 40 overs.
On a sunny Perth afternoon, the Blues were sent in by SA after losing their opening fixture to Western Australia on Tuesday. Sayers, who made his Test debut in South Africa earlier this year but was not chosen for the UAE tour to face Pakistan, found an early combination of outswing and seam to confound Ryan Gibson and then the NSW captain Kurtis Patterson.
Henriques attempted a counterattack with some success, but his innings was ended when he played around an accurate first ball from Zampa and was bowled. Nick Larkin made a start before being wonderfully caught at slip by Tom Cooper, also off Zampa, and Daniel Hughes' spinal contribution was ended on 79 in unfortunate fashion when Jay Lenton's drive was deflected from Zampa's hands onto the stumps with the non-striker stranded.
Jack Edwards, Daniel Sams and Steve O'Keefe all made useful lower-order contributions to ensure the Blues reached 241, but this seemed a scant tally on a good pitch. So it was to prove once Weatherald and Lehmann were established, clattering regular boundaries and in the opener's case a quartet of sixes to underline a considerable talent.
The last of these, an impudent legside flick that landed halfway up one of the WACA's grass banks, brought the scores level, and Cooper applied the finish with a straight drive in the 39th over. So SA started the competition with a win while NSW were left to ponder an opening pair of defeats. By a quirk of the competition, this is no handicap to making the finals - all six competing teams will do so irrespective of how many wins they register in the qualifying matches.
