\n
![\"Victoria](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753503308_17_placeholder.png\")
\n Victoria Men
\n VIC<\/p>\n
NSW coach issues reminder around Konstas’ (and others’) ‘baby’ cricketing experience, as Boland delivers match-winning spell<\/p>\n
Sam Konstas revived memories of his Boxing Day brilliance but the incumbent Test opener missed out on a match-winning hand as Scott Boland singlehandedly turned a tight Sheffield Shield contest at the Junction Oval.<\/p>\n
After a first-innings duck fuelled the view Marnus Labuschagne will take his spot for next month’s first Test against England, Konstas hit back with a daring fourth-innings half-century against the Boland-led Victoria attack on Friday.<\/p>\n
Ramping Konstas’ 53 revives Boxing Day memories<\/p>\n
Boland had pinned him lbw for a four-ball duck two days prior, but the 20-year-old came out swinging the second time around. He got off the mark with a drive on the up first ball off his Test teammate, before charging Fergus O’Neill and crunching him over mid-off for four.<\/p>\n
But the real heart-in-mouth moment came when Konstas flipped his hands, faced Boland chest on and reverse-ramped him over the slips cordon. It was the shot that had bemused and enraged India in his thrilling Test debut at the MCG last summer.<\/p>\n
The opener rode his luck at times \u2013 a top-edged hook off Mitch Perry would have been swallowed if fine-leg was fielding closer to the boundary \u2013 yet he also left the ball judiciously against the Vics’ probing seam attack.<\/p>\n
It was a feather in Todd Murphy’s cap to be the bowler who caused Konstas the most grief.<\/p>\n
Shortly after he brought up his 82-ball fifty, Konstas, who had tried and failed several times to work the seven-Test off-spinner square on the off-side, chopped on trying to hit against Murphy’s spin again.<\/p>\n
It was Konstas’ highest score since his 109 for Australia A in Lucknow last month, but was well short of the type of statement innings (158) posted this week by this Shield campaign’s most prolific performer so far, Labuschagne.<\/p>\n
Marnus strengthens Test case with fourth ton of summer<\/p>\n
Konstas’ overall volume of Shield runs this season (71 from four hits) is also well short of Labuschagne’s (319 from two) and Jake Weatherald’s (236 in four).<\/p>\n
“At 0-90 \u2026 it was a victory that should have occurred,” said NSW coach Greg Shipperd.<\/p>\n
“It was a disappointing finishing batting effort by our group after some sterling work by all our bowlers and catchers in both innings.<\/p>\n
“He’s a baby cricketer in terms of experience, as are a number of batters in the game on both sides. There’s a lot of learning to be done and he’s learned a couple of lessons today.”<\/p>\n
Murphy was the chief instigator in the Blues losing 4-8, which also included a contentious stumping call against an enraged Matthew Gilkes, who was deemed to have lifted his back foot right as Sam Harper whipped off the bails.<\/p>\n
Gilkes stunned as Harper pulls off remarkable stumping<\/p>\n
Gilkes had played and missed against O’Neill, who had started walking back to his mark when umpire Steve Dionysius made his surprise out decision.<\/p>\n
Ollie Davies hit a counter-attacking 64 but received an almighty send-off after being bowled by a peach from Boland, who ended up spearheading the Vics’ 38-run win by taking the final five wickets of the game.<\/p>\n
The right-armer engineered NSW’s collapse of 5-32 in a lion-hearted spell, finishing with 5-67 and player-of-the-match honours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boland insisted he had not been at his best.<\/p>\n
“I felt like I bowled well in patches this week, but it wasn’t the full game that I’d hoped,” said Boland. “There’s some good stuff but some stuff I want to work on as well.”<\/p>\n
In Hobart, a thrilling finish looms after Aaron Hardie (61) and Joel Curtis (29no) helped take Western Australia to within 44 runs of victory at stumps on day three.<\/p>\n
Tasmania took 3-3 to swing the game back in their favour but\u00a0Corey Rocchiccioli (8no) held firm with Curtis.<\/p>\n
The Tigers had resumed the day on 5-244, but lost 5-9 to be all out for 259 as WA quick Matthew Kelly (6-49) returned career-best figures.<\/p>\n
Red-hot Kelly collects another Shield bag<\/p>\n
In Adelaide, Queensland are in the box seat to seize victory as Mitchell Swepson (3-87) helped reduce South Australia to 5-238, ahead by just 68 runs.<\/p>\n
Lachlan Hearne earlier surged to his maiden first-class century, as he and Labuschagne ensured the Bulls reached 398.<\/p>\n
Hearne pulls his way to maiden first-class ton<\/p>\n
That gave them a 170-run first-innings lead, with Wes Agar’s 5-88 the best effort from the SA bowlers.<\/p>\n
Agar claims big scalps in five-wicket haul<\/p>\n
Sheffield Shield 2025-26 standings<\/p>\n
Team<\/p>\n
\n Matches played\n <\/p>\n
M<\/p>\n
\n Wins\n <\/p>\n
W<\/p>\n
\n Losses\n <\/p>\n
L<\/p>\n
\n Drawn\n <\/p>\n
D<\/p>\n
\n No results\n <\/p>\n
N\/R<\/p>\n
\n Deductions\n <\/p>\n
Ded.<\/p>\n
\n Batting Bonus\n <\/p>\n
Bat<\/p>\n
\n Bowling Bonus\n <\/p>\n
Bowl<\/p>\n
\n Total points\n <\/p>\n
PTS<\/p>\n
1
\n
\n Victoria Men
\n VIC<\/p>\n
2
\n 2
\n 0
\n 0
\n 0
\n 0
\n 1.83
\n 1.6
\n 15.43<\/p>\n
2
\n
\n NSW Men
\n NSW<\/p>\n
2
\n 1
\n 1
\n 0
\n 0
\n 0
\n 0
\n 2
\n 8<\/p>\n
3
\n
\n Queensland Bulls
\n QLD<\/p>\n
1
\n 0
\n 0
\n 1
\n 0
\n 0
\n 1.73
\n 0.8
\n 3.53<\/p>\n
4
\n
\n Tasmanian Tigers Men
\n TAS<\/p>\n
1
\n 0
\n 0
\n 1
\n 0
\n 0
\n 1.31
\n 0.2
\n 2.51<\/p>\n
5
\n
\n South Australia Men
\n SA<\/p>\n
1
\n 0
\n 1
\n 0
\n 0
\n 0
\n 0.87
\n 0.9
\n 1.77<\/p>\n
6
\n
\n Western Australia Men
\n WA<\/p>\n
1
\n 0
\n 1
\n 0
\n 0
\n 0
\n 0
\n 1
\n 1<\/p>\n
Legend<\/p>\n
M: Matches played<\/p>\n
W: Wins<\/p>\n
L: Losses<\/p>\n
D: Drawn<\/p>\n
N\/R: No results<\/p>\n
Ded.: Deductions<\/p>\n
Bat: Batting Bonus<\/p>\n
Bowl: Bowling Bonus<\/p>\n
PTS: Total points<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSW coach issues reminder around Konstas’ (and others’) ‘baby’ cricketing experience, as Boland delivers match-winning spell Sam Konstas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85,83],"class_list":["post-219972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}