Australia\u2019s bowlers made up for Darwin. It makes a batting fix even more urgent<\/a><\/p>\nTodd Murphy of Victoria celebrates after taking the wicket of Jake Lehmann of South Australia during day three of the Sheffield Shield match between Victoria and South Australia at CitiPower Centre, on March 28, 2026, in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Hussey backs under-fire star in batting | 02:48<\/p>\n
Statistically, the last four Shield seasons rank inside the top ten toughest for batters in the last 50 years with averages plummeting.<\/p>\n
Last summer, there were 27.42 runs per wicket, the third lowest in the past 50 years.<\/p>\n
Cricket Australia does not want to see an increase in draws in four-day games with flatter pitches, but they want to see more matches going down to the wire, bigger scores and more spin.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still want results in Shield cricket, we want to see a balance between bat and ball, and that hasn\u2019t changed,\u201d Roach added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the mantra a decade ago was probably \u2018if in doubt, lean towards the bowler\u2019. We\u2019re now changing that language to say, \u2018if in doubt, we should lean towards the batter\u2019 because conditions are being seen as pretty difficult for batting.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurators have all these moments in their preparation when they say, \u2018Do I do this? Do I do that?\u2019 We want them \u2013 if in doubt whether to thin some grass out, take another millimetre of grass off or give it another roll \u2013 to say, \u2018OK, I\u2019m going to make my decision leaning on the side of the batter more so than the bowler\u2019.<\/p>\n
Henry Thornton of South Australia celebrates taking the final wicket and victory over Victoria during day five of the Sheffield Shield match between Victoria and South Australia at CitiPower Centre, on March 30, 2026, in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a delicate balance and it\u2019s not the same for every ground; we\u2019re not averaging the same number of runs at every ground and we\u2019re not averaging the same number of overs of spin at each ground, and we don\u2019t want to. We want our grounds to be a bit different.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross the board, we want results, but we want them to be deep on that last day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to see teams win the toss and bat a bit more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the outcomes, but in the curators\u2019 minds, we\u2019re trying to use the language that we still want a balance, we still want to see fast bowlers have their turn, but we want to see batters have their turn and want to see spinners \u2013 that\u2019s a great game for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to see pace and bounce; we want to see it spin in Sydney. We\u2019re just making that minor tweak to our language to say, \u2018If in doubt, I think we need to lean towards the batter a little bit more in the preparation of pitches\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jurel scores 115* with India on top | 00:45<\/p>\n
Roach also confirmed that the injury substitution trial – which allows Shield teams to replace an injured or ill player in the first two days of a match – will continue.<\/p>\n
The International Cricket Council is considering introducing a version of the rule to Test cricket – which currently only allows concussion substitutes. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe think the substitution trial we had last season worked exceedingly well and we\u2019re really happy with it,\u201d Roach said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe heard really great feedback from our teams that there were times when they tried to take advantage of it and couldn\u2019t find a way to, which is exactly what we want. We want that team that has the injury to be not massively disadvantaged by the injury, hence the ability to replace. But we don\u2019t want them to get an advantage over the other team either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carse stood down after drunken incident | 00:58<\/p>\n
The Shield\u2019s first innings bonus-point system will also remain in place despite a widely held view that it encourage home teams to produce more sporting surfaces to more easily secure bowling bonus points.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t think that\u2019s influencing the way teams play as much as maybe the perception is,\u201d Roach said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think the Shield competition is in good shape. The right teams are winning it. The majority of games are played in a really good manner and we think anything we do should be minor.<\/p>\n
\u201cChanging the point structure is probably a bit more major, and we just don\u2019t think we\u2019re in that space where we need to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cricket Australia has encouraged curators shave more grass off, and reduce the moisture in, their pitches this summer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,85],"class_list":["post-867541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867541","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=867541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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