Speedster Brett Lee has helped himself to five wickets to lead New South Wales to an outright triumph over Victoria in the teams' Pura Cup clash at the Punt Road ground in Melbourne today. An unexpected result at the end of a rain-marred game, it came in the form of a 117-run success after an early morning declaration had opened up the possibility of an outright decision.

Lee snared 5/42 in an exhibition in which he demolished the locals' injury-riddled top and middle order. Given a target of 267 to win from a minimum sixty-one overs, the Bushrangers started steadily. But, once the blond-headed paceman had attained the thin outside edge of the bat of opener Graeme Vimpani (22) with the score at 36, the rot began to set in. He later grabbed the vital wicket of Victorian mainstay Brad Hodge (32) as the number four under-edged a cut, and despatched Shawn Craig (0), Darren Berry (9) and Paul Reiffel (13) in relatively quick succession thereafter.

Stuart MacGill (3/50) chimed in with another fine performance, and Glenn McGrath (1/26) made an important contribution by removing stubborn opening batsman Jason Arnberger (19) shortly before tea. Also noteworthy was a spectacular back-handed catch only inches above the turf by Steve Waugh diving low, forward and to his left from first slip to send a sweeping Matthew Mott (22) on his way.

After Lee's early strike, the Bushrangers were never really in the hunt for the six points. Hodge and Mott battled bravely against the odds but, not for the first time this year, the absence of Matthew Elliott at the top of the order proved too significant a blow to overcome. Laurie Harper's steadiness in the middle of the order was also badly missed, and the fact that key bowlers Damien Fleming and Shane Warne were similarly watching from the sidelines only added to the malaise. That the Bushrangers were bowled out for 149 inside the space of forty overs spoke volumes about the centrality of those players to the side's cause.

Earlier, Reiffel had left the way open for one of the sides to gain maximum points by boldly declaring Victoria's first innings closed an hour into the day's play. The Bushrangers sacrificed first innings points by making their closure at 6/194, fifty-six runs behind the Blues' total of 250.

This allowed the Blues enough time to thunder their way toward their own mid-afternoon declaration at a second innings score of 6/210 with a display of lusty, improvised strokeplay. Against some loose, predominantly short bowling, a succession of New South Wales players took the opportunity to smear shots to all parts of the ground. In an innings never short on action, regular tailender Don Nash (46) made the biggest impact, his crunching of the ball over the leg side resulting in the production of four towering sixes and two fours in a pyrotechnical twenty-three ball stay. Amid the carnage, even the absence of the clean-hitting Shane Lee (forced out of the match as a result of the chip to the little finger of his right hand that he sustained while fielding yesterday) made little difference.

Also looming large in the tale of the innings was some shoddy fielding from the home side. As many as four catches were dropped deep in the leg side field at different stages of a day that most of its players would clearly do very well to forget.

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