{"id":573686,"date":"2026-03-30T07:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/573686\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T07:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T07:17:11","slug":"south-australia-win-back-to-back-titles-after-victoria-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/573686\/","title":{"rendered":"South Australia win back-to-back titles after Victoria collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Daniel<\/p>\n

Updated March 30, 2026 \u2014 5:16pm,first published 11:12am<\/p>\n

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Victoria\u2019s captain and coach called for the addition of DRS to the Sheffield Shield final after the home side\u2019s disintegration inside 53 minutes on the final day handed South Australia back-to-back titles for the first time in the state\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Resuming at 5-102 chasing 196 for their first Shield since 2019, Victoria lost 5-27 to surrender the final to a jubilant SA team, who had trailed Victoria in the standings for the whole season.<\/p>\n

Led by a Queenslander in Nathan McSweeney, the SA side featured no fewer than nine players who had moved states, including six from New South Wales. SA have been nicknamed \u201cNSW A\u201d by some, and have been showing up the players once picked ahead of them.<\/p>\n

\"HenryHenry Thornton celebrates a wicket during Victoria\u2019s collapse on the final day of the final.Getty Images<\/p>\n

Victoria\u2019s last hope went with the wicket of teenager Ollie Peake, who was caught behind by Alex Carey off the bowling of allrounder Liam Scott, from a delivery that may have been a no ball \u2013 replays of the crease line were obscured by the non-striking batsman.<\/p>\n

There had also been numerous contentious lbw decisions across the game. While he was at pains not to attribute defeat to those calls, Victorian coach Chris Rogers made a strong point about the provision of DRS for the final.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to sell this as the sixth Test match of the year, then I think they should,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to have a third and fourth umpire, I think you should. But this goes both ways and for the game you want to make sure it is given the value that it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skipper Will Sutherland concurred.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Henry<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d be nice if they can find the funds for it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt takes a bit of uncertainty out of it, there were a couple of dicey no balls there as well, so you make sure the right decision\u2019s getting made, if that can happen it would be handy.\u201d<\/p>\n

After leading the Shield table all season, the 56-run defeat was a particularly bitter outcome for Rogers and Sutherland, as a year of consistent performance gave way to an abject collapse on the final day of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one hurts the most,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cWe went into those games [away finals in 2022 and 2023] massive underdogs and we kind of spent our tickets trying to get to the final. This time we planned well, we tailored it well to get our players in the best form, but we didn\u2019t get the job done in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we could have been better, no doubt. The fourth innings of a game that has a lot of pressure does funny things to people, and these players will grow from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AlexAlex Carey reaches his century on day four of the match.Getty Images<\/p>\n

SA\u2019s victory was largely down to a combination of Carey\u2019s sublime second innings century and the relentless seam bowling combination of Nathan McAndrew (3-50), Jordan Buckingham (1-27), Scott (3-32) and Henry Thornton (3-12). Test bowler Brendan Doggett had missed the final with a hamstring strain.<\/p>\n

After the last regular season game between the same two sides was played on a far friendlier pitch for batting, a much grassier surface made for an undulating contest but did no favours for Victoria\u2019s top order batting.<\/p>\n

Morning shadows were still shortening in the last week of daylight savings when Scott found Todd Murphy\u2019s outside edge from around the wicket \u2013 as Stuart Broad had done to cap the 2023 Ashes series at the Oval.<\/p>\n

McAndrew, who admitted to popping codeine painkillers to keep going at the end of a long season, followed up by winning a marginal lbw verdict against Mitch Perry, the angled ball flicking leg stump in the view of umpire Shaun Craig.<\/p>\n

Held back behind those two nightwatchmen, Peake punched one McAndrew half volley down the ground with a puritanically straight bat, before Scott soon found the outside edge with another away seamer that was expertly pouched by Carey. The umpires checked for a no ball, but gave Scott the benefit of the doubt as his boot was obscured by non-striker O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n

Top scorer for Victoria in the match with his first innings 64, O\u2019Neill was joined by captain Sutherland with 76 required, and SA countered by introducing the extra pace of Thornton.<\/p>\n

Sutherland was immediately hurried, and when Thornton offered a tempting length ball on a wider line, the Victorian skipper drove on the up in Bazball fashion and was safely held in the slips. Thornton then smashed O\u2019Neill\u2019s stumps to hand victory to SA.<\/p>\n

A lone visiting spectator ran onto the ground with the SA state flag, only to be told that the umpires were checking the no ball. It was a brief interruption before the SA celebrations began.<\/p>\n

The aftermath showed evidence of strong common purpose on and off the field. A group of squad players paid their own way to be in Melbourne for the final morning of the game, while a hastily constructed SACA marquee – paid for by the visitors – was by far the noisiest quarter of an otherwise deserted Junction Oval.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was easy, this year was bloody hard,\u201d said SA coach Ryan Harris, who started his cricket in Adelaide before learning much of what he teaches in Queensland. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes this a little more special.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve tried to instil is whatever the scenario, we\u2019ve just got to fight. You\u2019ve got to walk off that ground with your backside hanging out basically.<\/p>\n

\u201cI write four things on the board every game and one of them is \u2018we fight\u2019. And they do. They play for each other. The successful teams I\u2019ve played in, that\u2019s how you win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where SA\u2019s Shield winners came from<\/p>\n

Mackenzie Harvey – Victoria
Henry Hunt – NSW
Nathan McSweeney – Queensland
Jason Sangha – NSW
Alex Carey – SA
Jake Lehmann – SA
Liam Scott – NSW
Ben Manenti – NSW
Nathan McAndrew – NSW
Henry Thornton – NSW
Jordan Buckingham – Victoria<\/p>\n

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\"DanielDaniel Brettig<\/a> is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated March 30, 2026 \u2014 5:16pm,first published 11:12am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-573686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573686","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=573686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}