South Australia rifled through Victoria\u2019s lower order to win the Sheffield Shield final and claim back-to-back titles for the first time.<\/p>\n
Needing 196 to win, the home side resumed at 102-5 on day five at Junction Oval and were bowled out for 139, giving SA victory by 56 runs.<\/p>\n
There was controversy on the fifth and final day, with key Victorian batter Oliver Peake given out when Test keeper Alex Carey took a sharp diving catch off Liam Scott\u2019s bowling.<\/p>\n
Side-on TV footage appeared to show Scott\u2019s delivery was a front-foot no ball, but the non-striker batter partially obscured the delivery stride.<\/p>\n
Peake only made four and his dismissal was a critical blow to Victoria, who had dominated the season and were strong favourites to claim their first title since 2018-19.<\/p>\n
Scott, the Shield player of the year, snared 3-32 as Victoria lost their last five wickets for just 27. Henry Thornton took 3-12, including the last two wickets, and Nathan McAndrew claimed 3-50<\/p>\n
Carey set up the win on day four with his 103, after also scoring a ton in last year\u2019s final.<\/p>\n
McAndrew was named player of the match for his second-innings 60 and six wickets. His eighth-wicket partnership of 105 with Carey decisively turned an absorbing final, which was full of plot twists.<\/p>\n
When McAndrew came to the crease, Test paceman Scott Boland was on a hat-trick and SA were reeling at 122-7.<\/p>\n
It looked like the game might not survive through the early afternoon on Sunday. Instead, the visitors took control and Victoria lost their last seven wickets for 37.<\/p>\n
The Vics started the final morning well, taking 10 runs off the target, before nightwatchmen Mitch Perry and Nathan Murphy were dismissed in successive overs.<\/p>\n
Then Peake lost his wicket and once captain Will Sutherland was caught by Ben Manenti at first slip off Thornton, Victoria\u2019s hopes were shot.<\/p>\n
Thornton bowled Fergus O\u2019Neill to complete the triumph.<\/p>\n
SA only secured second spot to make the final in the last game of the regular season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really had to dig deep. The ability for us to stay in the game is incredible and to win two in a row with this group is super-special,\u201d SA captain Nathan McSweeney said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes it even better when we\u2019re all such good mates off the field. I couldn\u2019t be prouder or luckier to captain such great cricketers and even better blokes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australia rifled through Victoria\u2019s lower order to win the Sheffield Shield final and claim back-to-back titles for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-573264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573264","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=573264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}