For the first time this season, Ovens Valley United’s A grade side has been knocked off, with the previously winless Benalla Bushrangers more than handling the Tigers at McNamara Reserve on Saturday.

After winning the toss and batting, the Bushrangers made 7/156 from their 45 overs, before rolling the Tigers for 127.

It was a good toss to win, as Benalla’s openers made the most of easy batting conditions, sending ball after ball to the boundary.

James Carboon (34 from 48 balls) and Brayden Stepien (47 from 63) got the Bushrangers off to a flyer, forging an 83-run first-wicket partnership which lasted 15 overs.

After Geeth Alwis managed to dismiss Carboon LBW, Daniel Saville managed to squeeze one through onto the stumps, knocking over the dangerous Stepien short of his half-century, Benalla at 2/94.

Pace off the ball was the name of the game, with Ovens Valley captain Seamus Phillips rotating through nine bowling options.

The changes seemed to have an effect, as the Tigers were able to stall the flood of runs while taking regular wickets, limiting the target to 157 for victory.

Noah White bowled well without success, going for just 17 runs from his nine overs with two maidens, while Geeth Alwis (3/6 off nine) and James Neary (2/22 from six) had a massive impact.

With the target set, the Tigers had a nightmare start to their chase.

Saville slashed his second ball straight to point, gone for a duck, while Conner Forde was on the end of a bit of pitch trickery, knocked over by Xavier De Fazio for one.

In just the second over, the Tigers were 2/2.

While the ever-reliable Geeth Alwis (48 from 56) and Joel Jordan (30 from 68) fought back hard, not enough batters made their mark, thanks to Benalla’s impressive bowling control.

Phillips said the toss had a lot to do with how the game played out.

“It was a frustrating sort of day, it was probably one toss you wanted to win,” he said.

“It was a pretty dry pitch, so you want to bat on that early, and it just died in the afternoon, which made it pretty hard to score on for us.

“We didn’t bat very well, but it was a good lesson, we learnt a fair bit on how we need to approach the middle overs of the one-day game, we’ve got to be a bit more proactive in the middle overs.

“I’d expect us to chase that down every single week, but we just couldn’t.

“We lost early wickets to start, that put us on the back foot, then they just bowled to plans and they kept us quiet.

“We couldn’t really score at more than two an over for a large part of the game, then it just got away from us in the end.”

The Tigers look to close out the opening portion of the one-day competition this weekend, taking on a strong Yarrawonga Mulwala outfit at Stan Hargreaves Oval, Yarrawonga this weekend.

“We’re looking ahead to Yarra already, they’re looking pretty strong, so we’ll have to probably play our best game,” Phillips said.

“They’re looking pretty good, they had a good win on the weekend, by the looks of it.

“With the ball, we can definitely restrict them, and with the bat, we’ve got to work on what we know we need to work on, and hopefully that’s enough to get us over the line.”