Western Australia 233-2 (Joel Curtis 91, Cameron Bancroft 70) beat Victoria 230 (Campbell Kellaway 105, Bryce Jackson 4-40) by eight wickets at the WACA
Joel Curtis made sure Western Australia closed their One-Day Cup campaign on a positive note, his run-a-ball 91 laying the platform for a straightforward chase that silenced Victoria with 41 deliveries unused.
Curtis, fresh from a match-saving 75 against Tasmania a fortnight ago, looked set for three figures again. He and Cameron Bancroft (an unruffled 70, 94 balls) put on 134 for the second wicket, turning a target of 231 into something closer to routine. Curtis eventually holed out to Matt Short at extra-cover, 37 runs short of the finish line, but the damage was long done.
Earlier, Victoria’s own bright prospect Campbell Kellaway had done everything within his reach. Sent in on a WACA surface offering carry but little sideways movement, the 23-year-old opener compiled 105 from 117 deliveries—his second century of the tournament. It was a mixture of late cuts and wristy clips, nothing overly flashy, just sound judgment of length. Fittingly, it took a mis-hit off a Matthew Kelly full toss for the innings to end, Ashton Turner gripping the chance at long-on deep into the 49th over.
Around him, though, little stuck. Short managed 35, but no-one else passed 25. The squeeze came chiefly from Bryce Jackson, whose brisk right-arm seam returned 4-40—back-to-back four-fors for the 21-year-old after similar figures versus Tasmania. Left-arm quick Will Malajczuk, still only eighteen, chipped in with 2-48 and the satisfying wicket of Peter Handscomb first ball.
For Victoria the result rubber-stamps a tough year: bottom of the table just twelve months after reaching the final. There were flashes—Kellaway foremost among them—but cohesion never quite appeared. Western Australia, meanwhile, finish fourth, outside the play-off conversation yet encouraged by Curtis’s consistency and Jackson’s emergence.
No celebrations outlandish, no inquests sweeping. Simply, one side executed better on the day.
