Tasmania won by one wicket

There were three declarations in three-and-a-bit days of this thriller at Bellerive Oval, as rival captains Adam Voges and George Bailey engaged in some chess alongside the cricket.

WA bossed the majority of the match thanks to a total of 8d-442 off the back of contrasting first-innings tons: opener Luke Towers soaked up 286 balls for his 124, before dashing gloveman Luke Ronchi crashed a 99-ball century.

Alex Doolan’s maiden first-class hundred – 135 across four hours – led a strong Tassie reply before Bailey made the strategic call to surrender first-innings points by declaring at 5-296 – trailing WA by 146.

WA slipped to 2-17 in reply but Voges and Shaun Marsh quickly showed they were in the hunt for the full six points, the pair adding 154 in 39 overs before the skipper, who was 90no, declared on the final morning at 4-201.

The target for the home side was 348 in 85 overs – time enough if they were good enough, but time enough for Voges’ charges to take 10 wickets as well.

As the Shield season’s top run-scorer and off the back of 225 in his previous match, Ed Cowan partnered with Jon Wells (43) to add 102 for the first wicket, but with the Tigers 2-147 at tea and 201 runs still needed from the final 36 overs, a gear shift was required.

Cowan and Bailey provided exactly that. With the skipper peeling off a crucial cameo of 43 from 48 balls, the in-form opener began upping the ante as well; after scoring his first 50 from 115 balls, he paced himself expertly to score his next 100 from 107 balls.

With 54 needed from 58 balls, Cowan was the fifth man out for a superb 152 (227), and it was left to the Tassie lower order to keep the chase alive. Luke Butterworth (20), Brett Geeves (15) and Jason Krejza (11) all played important little hands as the runs required continued to drop.

From a WA standpoint however, the wickets kept falling, too; the home side had lost 5-48 in 53 balls to set up a cliffhanger.

With five deliveries remaining, and Ashley Noffke with ball in hand, Tasmania needed six. After No.11 Tim Macdonald took three balls to get down the other end, rookie ‘keeper Brady Jones was tasked with scoring five from two.

The first, Jones edged down to third man, but a likely single became four when WA quick Brett Dorey collapsed with a torn calf.

Suddenly, the scores were level. For the next ball – the last of the match – Voges brought his field in, forming a ring around the 21-year-old, who sliced a good-length ball from Noffke behind point and away to the boundary.

“It was awesome,” said the ‘keeper afterward. “My first win for Tassie, so that was the main reason I was so happy.”

First inns: WA 8d-442 (Towers 124, Ronchi 122; Geeves 3-90)

Second inns: Tas 5d-296 (Doolan 135; Voges 3-38)

Third inns: WA 4d-201 (Voges 90no; Geeves 2-50)

Fourth inns: Tas 9-351 (Cowan 152; Hogan 3-64)

 

Queensland won by five wickets

The Bulls opted to bowl first and despite two early wickets to James Hopes, South Australia recovered to post 403, largely thanks to a blazing 175 from Tom Cooper.

After lunch on day two, matters quickly became worse for Queensland. In 49.3 overs, they were skittled for 135, surrendering a 268-run first-innings lead to the visitors, who then galloped along at four an over before closing their innings midway through the third day at 6d-202.

Afterward, Hopes called the declaration a “gift horse”, but perhaps that was said with the benefit of hindsight; in between, Queensland were confronted with a target of 471 – a total they hadn’t managed in any first-class innings for five years, and one that, if achieved, would become the second-highest successful Shield run chase of all time.

“We definitely weren’t thinking: We’re gonna chase 470,” recalls Khawaja. “We were just like, ‘Alright, let’s just bat and see what happens’.

“‘Pomers’ (Luke Pomersbach, 47) and ‘Burnsy’ (Joe Burns, 72) had a really good partnership to start off, and then I came in at the end of day three, still not thinking about the result at all.”

Queensland were at that point 2-170, with Khawaja 26no and Nick Stevens 24no, and 301 still required.

The next morning, a challenging day-four wicket and some disciplined lines from SA made the going tough.

“It was a grind,” says Khawaja. “They bowled really well. We couldn’t score runs, and you can’t force the game at the Gabba because if a team bowls in good areas and you try to force it, you’ll just end up nicking the ball.

“So we had to play hard, grinding cricket. Nick Stevens got out pretty early (for 25), so that first session, I was just saying to ‘Foz’ (Peter Forrest), ‘Let’s keep grinding here, just keep batting, don’t worry about the scoreboard’.

“I think he scored at like 20 (strike-rate). But I just said to him, ‘Just keep doing what you need to do for the team. After this session, we’ll have two more sessions to bat. We don’t know what will happen’.”

A mere 45 runs were scored before lunch, leaving 256 still needed from the final two sessions. When Forrest fell after the interval for 35 from 155 balls, Khawaja received the impetus he needed from a positive Hopes, who quickly upped the scoring rate.

“Then I started scoring a bit more quickly too and I got my hundred just before tea,” Khawaja adds. “But at the break I saw we still needed like 160 off 36 overs and I’m thinking, Jeez, that’s really tough work.”

Khawaja’s century – his second for Queensland – had come from 238 balls, but with an asking rate of above 4.5 runs per over through the final session, he needed to switch gears. Which is exactly what he did.

“Honestly, I came out after tea, and I don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t miss the middle of the bat – I was absolutely crunching them,” he laughs. “They could bowl anywhere they wanted, and I was just smacking them for four.”

As Khawaja found his happy place and the runs required dropped below 100, Hopes fell for a fine 58 from 63 balls. His replacement, Chris Hartley, immediately relished the challenge, and with the target within touching distance, Khawaja – who by this stage had flown past 150 – felt what he thought was a twinge in his hamstring.

“I didn’t realise but I’d torn my adductor,” he says. “So I was leaning on my bat, I think we needed about 15 runs to win and ‘Lovey’ (Martin Love, Qld physio) came on. I just said to him, ‘I’ll just try to slog, try to win this game’.”

In supreme touch, a one-legged Khawaja, with Hartley for company, was enough, and the left-hander fittingly flayed the winning runs through cover, sealing a remarkable triumph; Queensland had scored 163 runs from 164 balls in the final session to win with 8.4 overs to spare.

“We could’ve chased 500-plus, the way we finished up,” Khawaja says. “But to do that with (Hopes and Hartley), both Queensland legends who I loved playing with, it was pretty special.”

First inns: SA 403 (Cooper 175; Hopes 4-71)

Second inns: Qld 135 (Hartley 33; Mennie 3-31)

Third inns: SA 6d-202 (Ferguson 70no; Hopes 2-47)

Fourth inns: Qld 5-471 (Khawaja 182no; Sayers 1-69)

 

Match drawn

Tasmania arrived at a stinking hot SCG having made history just eight days earlier in Perth, where they played out a remarkable contest with WA which, for the first time in Shield history, ended with the match drawn and the scores level.

After winning the toss and batting first against the high-calibre pace trio of Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Nathan Bracken, the Tigers had a trio of half-century makers in their total of 322. Tearaway Lee, returning from injury and aiming to prove his fitness for the Boxing Day Test against India, took 5-124 from 30 overs.

The Blues slipped to 2-29 in response but they had a star-studded middle-order to call on, and in his final season with his native state before switching allegiances to Tassie, Michael Bevan stole the show.

The left-hander put on a clinic against pace and spin, batting for eight hours to make 216 – his 25th hundred at the SCG and his highest first-class score – to help NSW to 462, a lead of 140 on the first innings.

That deficit had almost been erased by stumps on day three, as Shane Watson led Tasmania to 2-105, and the visitors pressed on well into day four, their star allrounder almost matching Bevan with a stellar 157 – his highest score for the Tigers.

Faced with a virtually no-win scenario, Tasmania batted on past tea, before they were finally bowled out for 315. With the Blues desperate to climb the ladder after three straight defeats, they had little choice but to have a dash at chasing down 175 in the 22 overs that remained in the day.

While their decision to elevate Dom Thornely to opener backfired when he was out in the first over, the wicket brought together a pair of dangermen in Bevan and Phil Jaques, and they set about their work with purpose.

Jaques was the aggressor, bringing up his 50 from 33 balls, while one-day master Bevan controlled the tempo of the chase. The Blues sailed past 100 inside 13 overs but the introduction of young Tigers spinner Xavier Doherty – who had taken four wickets in the first innings – stemmed the flow of runs, with just nine scored from his first three overs.

After Jaques departed for a stunning 85 from 60 balls, Bevan (53 off 49) and big-hitting ‘keeper Nathan Pilon, who had been sent in ahead of Simon Katich and Mark Waugh, added 28 in three overs to bring the equation down to 17 runs from 12 balls.

Bevan was caught at long-on by Doherty off the first ball of the penultimate over, bowled by Gerard Denton, who held his nerve to concede just seven from the remaining five balls. It left NSW skipper Katich and Pilon needing 10 from the final over, to be bowled by Doherty. With one ball left in the match, three runs were still needed. Katich thrashed a shot out to wide long-on, scampered two, looked keen on a third, but was sent back by Pilon.

Incredibly, lightning had struck twice for Tasmania: a second-straight drawn match with scores level. And they hadn’t earned a single point. 

First inns: Tas 322 (Dighton 69; Lee 5-124)

Second inns: NSW 462 (Bevan 216, Thornely 81; Doherty 4-142)

Third inns: Tas 315 (Watson 157; Katich 4-42, Bracken 3-55)

Fourth inns: NSW 3-175 (Jaques 85, Bevan 53; Denton 2-71)

 

NSW won by five wickets

For the third time in the calendar year, New South Wales and Western Australia played out a simply outrageous Shield thriller, boasting plot lines galore.

This one happened to also be on Melbourne Cup day, for which a 12-minute drinks break was held at the request of some players (Mark Waugh successfully backed Makybe Diva) but not all; one of the not-out batters, naturalised West Australian Murray Goodwin, seemed somewhat miffed by the extended time out. 

From the fifth ball of the match, Matthew Nicholson – on debut with NSW after a long, successful stint in WA – trapped Mike Hussey lbw.

Nicholson had WA skipper Justin Langer soon after and suddenly the visitors were rocking at 2-11. But Goodwin came to the rescue in style, batting out the rest of a day to be 184no, with his side 8-350.

In an extraordinary one-man show, the right-hander – who had played his last Test for his native Zimbabwe some three years earlier – made it to 201no the following morning before WA were all out 376. None of his teammates reached 35.

In reply, the Blues were almost equally reliant on one man, with WA product Simon Katich hitting his first Shield hundred since a move to NSW the previous summer to rescue his side from dire straits at 5-127.

The trouble had largely been caused by young left-arm wrist-spinner Beau Casson, who claimed 3-3 before tea on day two, and all three of them were prized scalps: Michael Slater and the Waugh twins.

From there Katich did receive some support in gloveman Nathan Pilon (78) and then Nicholson (42), but it was the left-hander’s supreme seven-hour innings that was chiefly responsible for getting NSW a first-innings lead of 60.

WA then brought the scores level without loss, shortly after tea on day three, at which point the game might have meandered into nothing. NSW skipper Steve Waugh churned through eight bowlers in the final session (he even gave himself a rare late-career bowl, claiming the wicket of Hussey for 53), and the visitors went to stumps one down with a lead of 94, with Langer – returning to form with 81no – ending the day with a flurry of boundaries.

The NSW players take a chance to relax during the running of the Melbourne Cup // Getty

That upward tick in the run rate lifted significantly the next morning as Langer (163no) doubled his score, Ryan Campbell crashed a quickfire 58 off 70, and WA added 208 in 44 overs before declaring, leaving themselves 52 overs to take 10 wickets.

For their part, NSW needed 303 runs, and Steve Waugh made his intentions clear when he elevated not one but two pinch hitters – Pilon and Don Nash – in his top three, alongside Slater.

The Blues flew to 70 inside 10 overs but by then they had lost the aforementioned three, which meant captain Waugh and Phil Jaques had some work to do.

The pair added 99 at a run a ball before Jaques departed for a crucial 43 from 35. At 4-169 in the 27th over, Waugh was joined by his brother Mark (13), and the elder twin continued swinging freely, scoring the bulk of a 46-run stand from 57 balls.

He reached his hundred moments before Mark was bowled by Casson, paving the way for Katich’s arrival. At that point, NSW needed 88 from 96 balls with five wickets in hand.

Adding to the drama was the fact Katich was at one point a doubt to even enter the action, after he suffered a thumb injury in the field, and was sent for an X-ray.

“He couldn’t move his thumb,” said Waugh later. “I said, ‘Take a couple of Panadol Fortes and get out there’.”

Not that Katich showed any indication of it hampering him across the next 42 minutes, in which he completed one of the more remarkable Shield doubles of modern times.

The left-hander was a picture of controlled carnage, assuming the dominant hand in the stand over his vastly more experienced partner as he clubbed 12 fours and a six from 45 balls.

In that time he made an unbeaten 71 in an 88-run stand, and just like that, the hosts were home with five wickets and 28 balls to spare.

In all, 511 runs were scored on day four as both sides went full throttle for the win.

“It was a pretty incredible day,” said Waugh. “I played well, paced myself well and Simon helped me out at the end – it was an amazing innings of his.

“Full credit to both sides – for them setting a target and us going for it. A lot of sides wouldn’t have gone for it. It was a generous declaration and we probably didn’t deserve it but in the end it was a great game.”

First inns: WA 376 (Goodwin 201no; Mail 2-57)

Second inns: NSW 436 (Katich 182no; Casson 4-141)

Third inns: WA 8d-362 (Langer 163no; Nicholson 4-69)

Fourth inns: NSW 5-303 (S Waugh 117no, Katich 71no; Wilson 2-79)

 

Queensland won by three wickets

With skipper Ricky Ponting in pursuit of his first Shield final win, Tassie won the toss and really grafted on a tricky Gabba pitch to make 241 in their first innings. Having finished top, the Bulls were missing the explosive fast-bowling allrounder Ben Cutting but could call on Ryan Harris, Steve Magoffin, James Hopes and young gun Alister McDermott, who took 6-54.

In reply, Queensland fell to 5-55 and it was clear that a low-scoring shootout dominated by pace bowling was set to ensue. At that point, the home side’s two experienced heads – Hopes and Chris Hartley – came together, adding 89 in quick time before the former fell for a fine 58. Despite struggling with a virus, Hartley pressed on, his 111 from 169 balls a standout innings even as he gained valuable support from Harris (18) and then Magoffin (31) to push the Bulls in front by 35 at the halfway mark of the match.

In a gripping, tense affair occasionally halted by rain, the Tigers opening bowlers, Jackson Bird (4-56) and Luke Butterworth (4-54), were immense. But Queensland’s quicks responded in kind, combining to remove four of Tassie’s top five for single-figure scores and leave them four down with a one-run lead.

Ed Cowan (71) finally found a willing partner in Tom Triffitt (35), and thereafter the last five wickets cobbled together 80 runs to leave the hosts needing 133 to win.

A second-wicket stand of 61 between Wade Townsend (36) and Andrew Robinson (31) took them to the halfway point of their chase, but a couple of quick wickets proved the catalyst for chaos; in a crazy 21-ball window, Queensland lost 4-0 to suddenly find themselves 7-88 – still 45 runs shy of victory.

With the Tigers sensing a quick kill, it was on first-innings heroes Hartley and Magoffin to halt the momentum, and turn the tide. The diminutive Hartley (19no), still struggling with illness, and the lanky Magoffin (26no), who had been in so much pain with a bad back that he had needed help getting out of bed that morning, made for the ultimate odd couple. But their first-innings stand of 97 had instilled some belief, and across the next 74 minutes, they defied the Tasmanians and got their team over the line by three wickets.

Beaten but magnanimous, Ponting was full of praise for the Queensland gloveman.

“It was not easy to bat on that deck and only one man (Hartley) looked comfortable the whole game,” he said. “With the wicket the way it was, and with the overhead conditions, it kept everyone in the contest. As a batter you could not afford to relax for one ball.”

And as Queensland lapped up the spoils of victory, an exhausted and emotional Hartley summed up how he was feeling with a simple sentence: “I don’t know if I have played a better game of cricket than that.”

First inns: Tas 241 (Cazzulino 68; McDermott 6-54)

Second inns: Qld 276 (Hartley 111, Hopes 58; Butterworth 4-54)

Third inns: Tas 167 (Cowan 71; Hopes 5-61)

Fourth inns: Qld 7-133 (Townsend 36, Magoffin 26no, Hartley 19no; Faulkner 3-27)