New South Wales Blues through to final

New South Wales will meet Victoria in next Sunday's Mercantile Mutual Cup final following a 49-run victory over Queensland in front of 5360 people at the SCG today.

The Blues scored 9/224 in their fifty overs, batting first. Corey Richards was top scored with 54 while Michael Bevan, playing his first game since his finger injury in the one-day final against England eleven days ago, made 49. Captain Mark Taylor had another failure in NSW colours scoring three, although TV replays indicated that he was caught behind off the pad without getting an edge.

Mark Higgs suffered the unusual misfortune of being out hit wicket from a wide. Attempting a swing at a ball down the leg side, he brought his front foot around and knocked his leg stump out of the ground.

In another unusual move, Queensland captain Stuart Law opened the bowling with his slow medium-pacers, his four overs conceding seventeen runs.

Queensland began their run chase disastrously losing their first four wickets for 31 runs in just over nine overs. Left-arm paceman Nathan Bracken removed Hayden (2), Maher (3) and Love (13). Law (7) was run out at the non-strikers end when Love hit a firm straight drive which bowler Stuart Clark deflected off his toe onto the stumps with Law just out of his ground. Reduced to 6/52 when the fifteen over field restriction ended, only a resolute 66 from Scott Prestwidge saved the remainder of the game from complete boredom. Sloppy fielding, including two dropped catches from the usually super-reliable Mark Taylor at first slip, helped Queensland get a lot closer to NSW's score then they deserved, finally dismissed for 175 after 46.5 overs.

Nathan Bracken (3/20 from seven overs) was named man of the match. Before the game, NSW all-rounder Shawn Bradstreet received an award for the Best New Talent of the 1998-99 Mercantile Mutual Cup season.

New South Wales travel to Melbourne for the final against Victoria on February 28. The Vics won the first semi against South Australia on Saturday and qualified for home advantage by finishing in first place in the round-robin series.