Klinger stars in Western Australia's comfortable win

Western Australia got their Matador Cup campaign up and running with an easy 41-run win over Victoria in a rain-curtailed match at Perth.

Rain interrupted the game at least twice during the first innings as WA scored 190/6 in the 28 overs that were allocated to them. Michael Klinger was the star with the bat for WA, hitting 87 off 78 balls while D'Arcy Short chipped in with an attacking fifty.

With rain continuously interrupting the game, Victoria were set a revised target of 140 in 18 overs. Andrew Tye and Jason Behendorff then joined hands to wipe out the Victoria top-order with five wickets in the first eleven overs. Victoria could not recover from the early setbacks and could only muster 98 runs for 9 wickets by the end.

Opting to bowl first, Victoria came up against an aggressive Michael Klinger. The batsman slammed three fours off the second over to set the tone. However, Marcus Stoinis got rid of Shaun Marsh at the other end to give his side some respite. Klinger continued his onslaught at the other end, but the wicket of Adam Voges for a 10-ball duck again set WA back.

D'Arcy's and Klinger stemmed the rot with a 92-run stand in quick time, but once again Victoria struck back with the wickets of D'Arcy (52), Cameron Bancroft (9), Hilton Cartwright (10) and Klinger to restrict WA to 190.

In reply, Victoria made a steady start with Cameron White and Marcus Harris taking the team to 27/0 in the fifth over.

But once Harris fell off the last ball of the fifth over, out caught off Behendorff, things quickly fell downhill for Victoria. Andrew Tye ended with three wickets to his name, while Behendorff and Voges took two each.

Western Australia jump to second on the table with 6 points (one win and one tie) in three games, 6 points behind top-placed Queensland. Victoria, on the other hand, are third with one win and one loss.

Brief scores: Western Australia 190/6 in 28 overs (Michael Klinger 87, D'Arcy Short 52; Glenn Maxwell 2-18) beat Victoria 98/9 in 18 overs (Cameron White 24; Andrew Tye 3-10, Adam Voges 2-22) by 41 runs (D/L method).