A career best knock in coloured clothing from Jordan Silk was not enough to lift Tasmania past South Australia in their One Day Cup clash in Adelaide.
The Tigers skipper notched his second List A century at Karen Rolton Oval, carving out a superb 142 as the Tigers fell just seven runs short of overhauling the hosts’ mammoth 7-383.
Silk cracked 20 boundaries in his 106-ball masterpiece, keeping the visitors on track to pull off their biggest run chase in history until he was bowled by Henry Thornton in the 44th over.
Some lusty late blows from Will Prestwidge (39 from 36) kept Tasmania in the hunt, and when Matt Kuhnemann cleared the rope off the penultimate ball in the 49th over the Tigers were left needing 18 runs from the final six deliveries.
However, Wes Agar held his nerve to close out the match, with Tasmania finishing on 8-376.
It was still the state’s highest team score ever in a 50-over run chase, but ultimately agonisingly shy of seeing the Tigers start the season two from two following their commanding nine-wicket victory over Western Australia on Sunday.
“Personally it’s a nice start to the summer, it would’ve obviously capped off a really nice road trip for us to go with the win in Perth and then win here, but South Australia played an excellent game of cricket as well and held their nerve towards the end,” said Silk, who was awarded player of the match honours.
“It’s not an easy place to defend runs, clearly, and I thought we showed good fight to get it right to the last two balls.
“Good effort, you would always like to keep them to a little less than what they ended up with, but I thought it was still a total we could chase.
“It maybe just felt like we were a wicket behind the whole way through, if we had one more wicket there was a possibility we would chase that.”
Silk was well supported by Tim Ward (61 from 45 balls), who struck three boundaries and four sixes as the pair shared a 110-run stand for the fourth wicket.
Earlier, it was Jake Fraser-McGurk who gave South Australia an explosive start, crunching six sixes and nine boundaries in a whirlwind 47-ball 88 to lay the platform for the imposing total.
Fraser-McGurk and Mackenzie Harvey (41) put on 120 for the opening wicket in just 13.4 overs, before Matthew Gilkes (97 not out from 65 balls) and former Tiger Jake Weatherald (92 from 89) continued the onslaught on a batting-friendly surface.
The Tigers will return home Thursday to begin preparations for their first Sheffield Shield match in two weeks.