\n
![\"Victoria](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753503308_17_placeholder.png\")
\n Victoria Men
\n VIC<\/p>\n
Test quick insists he is yet to hit his straps after fiery Sheffield Shield finish<\/p>\n
Boland brilliance inspires Vics to thrilling Shield victory<\/p>\n
Scott Boland got his competitive juices flowing in his penultimate Ashes tune-up, but the Test paceman laughed off suggestions he will be fodder for England this summer.<\/p>\n
Boland got reverse-ramped by Sam Konstas in a spicy Sheffield Shield contest on Friday but it was one of the opener’s New South Wales teammates that lit a flame under the Victorian at the Junction Oval.<\/p>\n
Ollie Davies, who threatened to rip the game away from the hosts in his rollicking 73-ball 64, copped a send-off from the 36-year-old after a brilliant seam-backer than cannoned into leg-stump.<\/p>\n
Boland, who was named player of the match despite stressing he still has not hit his straps with the ball this summer, played down the exchange with Davies.<\/p>\n
“I was just excited to get a wicket,” he told reporters. “I hadn\u2019t got one for a while. We’ve had some good contests. I played an Aussie A game with him last year, really enjoyed his company. He’s a nice fella, we had some nice words after the game.”<\/p>\n
But Greg Shipperd, Boland’s first state coach at Victoria who is now at the helm of New South Wales, insisted that “is not the Scotty Boland I know”.<\/p>\n
Shipperd’s counterpart, Chris Rogers, suggested there had been more to it.<\/p>\n
Ramping Konstas’ 53 revives Boxing Day memories<\/p>\n
“I think they’ve had a bit of a verbal stoush before,” Victoria coach Rogers told reporters. “I think Ollie likes to give as much as he gets.<\/p>\n
“Ollie was batting beautifully as well \u2013 so that was a big wicket for us. That’s the great thing in the Sheffield Shield, there’s little contests within the contest.”<\/p>\n
It was the first of five consecutive Boland wickets that singlehandedly fired the Vics to a 38-run win after the Blues looked the goods to chase 255 in their fourth innings having been set up by Konstas’ 53.<\/p>\n
It bodes well for an Australian side likely to need him if Pat Cummins is not fit for the Ashes series opener in Perth next month.<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing how class players step up when the moment counts,” said Rogers. “To come and get the last five wickets \u2013 I mean, that is just exceptional, and just shows just how good he is, if anyone needed any more convincing.”<\/p>\n
Boland had been expensive leading into his match-turning spell, revealing a minor issue with his run-up had prevented him from finding his best rhythm.<\/p>\n
That, and not former England captain’s Michael Atherton’s quip that Boland “holds no fear” for the Bazballers this summer, has been his main preoccupation this week.<\/p>\n
“I saw it,” a smiling Boland said. “My cousin sent it to me, taking the piss. I’m sure there’s going to be so much banter between former players between now and the first Test.<\/p>\n
“They can say what they want.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’ve got my own internal motivations for what I want to do during the summer.<\/p>\n
“I’m never going into a game just middling along. There’s always some motivation for me to try and either come into the team and try to put in a really good performance to try and keep my spot.<\/p>\n
“There’s so many good fast bowlers in Australia that just don’t want to give anyone an inch.”<\/p>\n
Boland will skip the Vics’ next Shield match as part of his pre-Ashes management plan before facing the Blues again at the SCG on November 10, with Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood likely to turn out for NSW.<\/p>\n
Boland is eager to find his best form at domestic level before the Test series begins.<\/p>\n
“I was probably stressing about it a bit too much from what I usually do,” Boland said of his struggles at times with the ball this week.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes that just happens. I just want to find my rhythm as quick as I can in a game. Sometimes that happens in half a spell, sometimes it takes a bit longer.<\/p>\n
“I felt like I was able to hang in enough to bowl some spells and get some wickets for the team.”<\/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":"Test quick insists he is yet to hit his straps after fiery Sheffield Shield finish Boland brilliance inspires…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85,83],"class_list":["post-220899","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\/220899","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=220899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}