Two excellent fighting partnerships not only rescued Tasmania from potential disaster but ultimately guided it to a position of relative comfort by stumps on the opening day of its vital Sheffield Shield match against Victoria at the Bellerive Oval today. Underpinned by a superb 153 run stand for the third wicket between Shaun Young and the ever-reliable Jamie Cox and an unbroken 112 run liaison for the sixth wicket between Daniel Marsh and veteran skipper David Boon, the Tasmanians' performance was a tribute to the determination of four men who clearly each have substantial roles to play if their team is to reach its second Shield Final in successive seasons.
After the Tasmanians had appeared to reward Victorian captain Darren Berry's shrewd decision to send them into bat by surrendering two early wickets, the Young-Cox partnership more than redressed the balance through the session and a half during which they were united. Whilst Cox (77) drove the ball powerfully through the off side, Young (76) hit murderously to leg and together they produced one of Tasmania's most entertaining partnerships this season. In a welcome return to form, Young delighted the surprisingly large New Year's Day crowd with some big hitting particularly two thunderous pull shots that he crashed over the mid-wicket boundary from the bowling of debutant Ashley Gilbert in the middle of the post-lunch session. As if there were any doubt as to his remarkable consistency and dependability for the Tigers, Cox also played beautifully, building his innings slowly at first before launching a marvellous counter-attacking display.
Just as they were assuming command of the situation, however, the Victorians claimed both batsmen shortly before tea as David Saker (2/77), Matthew Inness (1/70) and the towering Ashley Gilbert (1/47) set about extracting some deserved rewards for their solid bowling performances throughout the day. When Rodney Tucker (7) joined them back in the pavillion on the other side of the break, Tasmania was deep in trouble again at 5/181.
Enter Daniel Marsh (77 not out), who unsurprisingly honoured the licence to attack that was given to him by his captain in Boon, who all the while was building an extremely patient 36 at the other end. Whilst Marsh's mode of batting was typically belligerent, there was a sense that this innings was compiled by a player who is becoming more cognisant of his growing leadership role within his team. Unlike in some innings he has played in the past, he ensured that he made the most of a life that was given to him at 34 by Arnberger - in what appeared to be highly unusual circumstances (he seemed to celebrate accepting a sharp chance at mid wicket prematurely and consequently lost control of the ball as he attempted to jubilantly throw it into the air) - and turned his innings from a solid one into a great one for his State. At the forefront of his repertoire was a powerful square cut, but he also played a number of blisteringly-hit cover drives and some aggressive pull shots.
Earlier in the day, Dene Hills and Ricky Ponting both struggled once again to produce the definitive form turnarounds which they are so desperately seeking. Hills was run out off the third ball of the match for five, and Ponting fared little better - departing in the third over of the match for just nine. The former gave himself little chance to build upon his promising last start effort against Queenslandwhen he inexplicably elected to attempt a second run after having pushed the ball just past Jason Arnberger at short leg to a regulation mid wicket position. When Arnberger's accurate return arrived in Berry's gloves, Hills was duly caught well out of his ground. Ponting - who appears to be wrestling as much with his own thought processes as he is with the bowlers against whom he is playing - also gave away his wicket too easily. After giving the impression (by slamming nine runs from his first five balls) that he wished to hit himself back into touch, he again found himself out of position to a ball bowled just short of a length outside the off stump and presented a straight forward catch to Shawn Craig at second slip off David Saker's bowling.
For all the plaudits that must be heaped on the exhibition of the four successful batsmen today, their performance has paradoxically presented their team with something of an uncomfortable dilemma. Both sides clearly realise that they need the maximum six points that are on offer in this game and it is therefore unlikely that the Tasmanians will want to shut Victoria completely out of the contest tomorrow. Essentially, Boon must find a way of balancing the temptation of amassing a large first innings total with the need to ensure that he has a genuine chance to take the ten Victorian second innings wickets that he will need for victory (a result which, in all honesty, is probably more likely to be achieved if he sets his opponents a challenging run chase later in the game than if he bats them completely out of the match on the second day) on another beautiful Bellerive batting pitch. Let us hope that, whatever decision he makes, it ensures that the cricket which follows is as entertaining as the six hours of play that were produced today.
Day 2
As the reality that this game may well have critical significance to the final standings in this year's Sheffield Shield competition became increasingly apparent to all at the ground, this was another day of absorbing cricket at the Bellerive Oval. By day's end, the match remained extremely evenly poised after six hours of play during which the fortunes of the two sides fluctuated steadily.
Initially, it was the energetic and raw twenty-year old Victorian fast bowler Matthew Inness (4/89) who set the tone for the day's highly competitive proceedings. Witnessing the unique tangle of arms and legs that he generates as he reaches the bowling crease, one always finds it easy to enjoy watching Inness bowl and, through the course of the first ninety minutes today, he made the experience all the more pleasurable by effectuating possibly the best spell of pace bowling that has been produced at Bellerive all season. Wonderfully supported by David Saker (2/99) - who unluckily went wicketless during his unbroken two hour spell from the Derwent River end - he was hostile, disarmingly quick and bowled with a nagging degree of accuracy. After having danger man Daniel Marsh (77) caught in the gully by Graeme Vimpani from just the second ball of the morning, he also quickly removed Mark Atkinson (3) and Greg Rowell (5) and, in doing so, effectively eliminated any thoughts that Tasmanian captain David Boon may have been able to make a declaration later in the day. Although Boon (64) himself continued to add some much-needed steel to his team's batting effort before he played a loose shot to slip off Jason Bakker (1/70) to give the debutant his first Shield wicket, Inness's destructive performance paved the way for his teammates to work their way right back into the match after a disappointing final hour on the previous day. Indeed, such was the quality of the overall bowling performance that it was only whilst Tasmania's number ten and number eleven batsmen, Ben Targett (23) and Mark Ridgway (16 not out), added a highly valuable thirty runs for the final wicket that the visitors displayed any genuine sense of frustration in the field today.
In virtually every match that has been contested at Bellerive this season, opening batsmen have never been far from the headlines. And so it proved again as it then became the turn of another Matthew - namely, Victoria's star left hander, Matthew Elliott - to back up his namesake's performance by adding his name to a rapidly lengthening honour roll with a solid unbeaten 94 to lead his team's pursuit of Tasmania's final first innings tally of 370. Exhibiting a particular liking for driving the ball square of the wicket, Elliott was the foundation around which the Victorian innings of 3/151 was built. Admittedly, his runs were scored in an environment made considerably more congenial by the absence (through representative duties) of Tasmania's two best bowlers in Colin Miller and Gerard Denton and it should also be said that he played far more loose shots today than one typically sees from him. But few who were among the moderate crowd at Bellerive could argue against the notion that he assumed the responsibility of leading a largely inexperienced batting lineup in excellent fashion.
All the while, the Tasmanians themselves continued to work hard, and they satisfactorily checked the Victorians' progess by taking three wickets at vital stages through the afternoon. After they had seen the opening pair essentially weather their new ball assault, they extracted the wicket of Jason Arnberger with the score at 23 following a meek defensive shot that was played comfortably into the hands of a grateful Dene Hills at short leg from the bowling of Rowell (1/43). Following a steady 82 run stand between Elliott and Matthew Mott (34), they then made the most of a terrible running mix up. Elliott's error in calling the unlucky Mott through for a single from a shot played virtually straight to Jamie Cox at a deepish point position was then smartly compounded by the locals as Cox again gleefully accepted a sharp chance presented to him by Vimpani (7) at short mid wicket off the gentle medium pace bowling of Shaun Young (1/14).
At the halfway mark of this match, therefore, the exercise of predicting what course it will now take is one fraught with danger. Whatever happens, though. it does at least seem reasonable to expect that the game will continue to remain a highly engrossing one on a pitch that began to show some signs that it may start playing increasingly slower and lower over the next two days.
Day 3:
For all the promise that it had shown and the entertainment that it had provided over the course of the preceding two days, this match took a thoroughly unexpected and irreversible turn for the worse today.
In a highly confusing display, Victoria's batsmen all but elected to kill this match with one of the slowest exhibitions seen at Bellerive in a long time. Although the reasons underlying their performance remained almost impossible to fathom, the extent of their crawl certainly was clear: just 209 runs in the entire day. The extent of this effort was made all the more remarkable by the notion that 40 of the runs were made in relatively quick time (albeit a little more scratchily than is normal for him) in the morning by Matthew Elliott (134) as he moved to his fifth first class century of the season before he was beautifully deceived by left arm orthodox spinner Daniel Marsh and spooned back a simple caught and bowled chance.
At the core of their torturesome exhibition rigidly remained the figure of diminutive left hander, Shawn Craig. Craig, who for long periods of the day appeared to be rooted immovably to the crease, refused to allow anything to ruffle him as he overcame early difficulties with his timing and placement to graft a painstaking unbeaten 100. Whilst his maiden first class century - reached very late in the day from an amazing 316 balls and a staggering 389 minutes - was unmistakably a tribute to his powers of concentration and the solidity of his defensive strokes, it unfortunately did not say much for his sense of occasion. Indeed, one of the biggest Sheffield Shield crowds of the year in Hobart left the ground highly frustrated by the inactivity they were unfortunately forced to endure. Craig's performance was backed by similarly snail-paced batting from first-gamer Jason Bakker (41), skipper Darren Berry (15) - the man who should take most of the responsibility for what happened here today - and David Saker (10 not out).
Although Marsh (2/71), Greg Rowell (1/83) and Shaun Young (1/40) each toiled manfully, the Tasmanian bowlers were generally unable to extract much life from a typically flat and slow Bellerive wicket and the Tigers consequently left the ground highly disheartened. Marsh can in fact take some share of the blame for the day's events - or lack thereof - for he was guilty of grassing what turned out to be a highly expensive straight forward chance at first slip off Mark Ridgway when Craig had scored just 12.
As reasonable as it had seemed overnight to assume that we would see some more engrossing cricket today, this match now appears to be consigned to little more than an exercise in batting practice in the wake of Berry's tactics. It is likely that the Bushrangers will make sure of the two first innings points in the morning before passing the baton to the likes of Cox, Hills, Ponting and Young to see this match through to an early conclusion.
Day 4:
A foreseeably dismally small crowd watched an even more predictable finish to the Sheffield Shield match between Tasmania and Victoria at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart today. Time once again appeared to stand still as Victoria's lower order and Tasmania's top order batsmen assiduously administered the last rites to a game that had had its fate essentially already terminally sealed the previous afternoon.
If Victoria's tactics had been hard to understand on the third day, they became even more difficult to follow on the fourth. After Shawn Craig and David Saker had spent another laboured thirty minutes accumulating the eleven extra runs they had needed to finally secure first innings points for their team, the visitors inexplicably decided to bat on well past the Tasmanian total. After all of the interminable batting, and as if to completely thumb their noses at their opponents and the spectators, Craig (128 not out - made in 448 minutes), Saker (23) and John Davison (7) then suddenly proceeded to attempt several wild attacking blows before their captain, Darren Berry, finally relented - with the score at 8/408 - and took the action that sadly would have been far more appropriately effected a little under twenty-four hours earlier.
Nevertheless, the afternoon did provide the opportunity for Jamie Cox (101 not out) to again showcase his talents to an audience even more appreciative than usual of the sight of a batsman who was prepared to play his shots. Although his runs were clearly made under little pressure, and against a Victorian attack struggling to find inspiration in the absence of Reiffel, Fleming, Warne and Harvey, Cox's play was faultless - indeed, his was clearly the best individual innings of the match. Once again, the highlight of his game was his driving through mid off and the covers and he also hit a number of beautiful straight drives. If, as has been touted in the local print media recently, Cox is shortly contracted to play with Somerset over the next two English domestic seasons, then that county should be well pleased with their efforts in snaring him; although he has gone almost completely unrecognised by the national selectors throughout his career, he is indisputably one of Australia's most consistent and attractive batsmen. He was well supported during the afternoon by his opening partner Dene Hills (50) and later by Shaun Young (46 not out). But regrettably for Ricky Ponting (2), and as golden as the opportunity for him to get himself back among the runs was this afternoon, this was yet another bad day. Over the course of the 16 balls that he faced, he survived two huge lbw appeals and looked extremely nervous as he desperately attempted to cover the line of his off stump by playing virtually every ball off the front foot. It certainly came as little surprise when he was magnificently stumped by Berry off the bowling of Jason Bakker (1/19) as he unsuccessfully flicked at a ball down the leg side.
At the end of this game (one that originally appeared to promise so much), it remains impossible not to feel cheated. Whilst it could be argued that Berry did not feel confident about pursuing an outright result with what was a severely depleted side, it was strange that he chose to refuse to even entertain the idea of chasing a fourth innings target on a docile wicket against a side which - despite the fact that it was also severely weakened - was desperate to open the game up. Notwithstanding the bad blood that has been evident between these two teams over recent years (and even bearing in mind that there have been a number of situations over the last decade in which Tasmania has chosen to pursue a similar policy to the one adopted by the Vics in this game), this was not a contest which called for negative play. With South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland all proverbially breathing down Victoria's neck on the Sheffield Shield table (and now with games in hand), it is quite conceivable that Berry will ultimately come to rue his curious actions here. Moreover, it might ironically be the case that it is the Victorians themselves - rather than the Tasmanian players and a bitterly dejected local crowd - who ultimately suffer the greatest sense of pain from this match.