FOR the second successive season, Western Australia is the undisputed benchmark of men’s cricket having emphatically added the Marsh Sheffield Shield to a trophy cabinet already bulging with national one-day and T20 silverware.

Having secured the Shield last year on the back of a dogged batting effort that secured a draw, WA dominated this year’s play-off and completed a nine-wicket win over Victoria at the WACA Ground with more than a day and half to spare.

The win was sealed at 1.44pm local time when opener Cameron Bancroft – leading runs scorer for Shield season – fittingly lifted part-time spinner Matt Short to the long-on boundary as the crowd that had swelled to around 2000 and had cheered every run of the pursuit, stood as one.

Bancroft finished unbeaten on 39 while his 18-year-old batting partner Teague Wyllie, who now owns two Shield winners’ medallions, 43no from his 50-ball cameo at number three
Recalled batter Ashton Turner was voted player of the match by Fox Cricket’s broadcast commentators for his game-changing 128 (from 227 balls), the only triple-figure score of the final having gone to the wicket with his team reeling at 4-53 on day two.

It was a unanimous verdict given difficulties every other specialist batter encountered on the well-grassed WACA pitch, although Victoria allrounder Will Sutherland’s return of five wickets and 83 runs might have seen him in the reckoning had his team genuinely threatened for the title.

It’s WA’s 17th Shield title having joined in 1947-48, extending their lead over South Australia (13) and Queensland (9) who have both been in the 130-year competition longer and behind other foundation teams New South Wales (47) and Victoria (32).

They also become the first team since Victoria (2014-17) to lift the Shield in successive summers, and the first WA outfit to claim consecutive crowns since the star-studded line-up of 1997-98 and 1998-99 led by Tom Moody

But perhaps most symbolically, WA becomes the first state to have secured all three domestic men’s titles – the Shield, Marsh One-Day Cup and KFC BBL – in consecutive seasons, which underscores the strength and depth of their cricket program.

The only other state to complete that trifecta in the 17 seasons since the domestic T20 tournament was introduced is Victoria, after their Shield and One-Day Cup double was complemented by Melbourne Renegades’ triumph in the BBL local derby final of 2018-19.

While yesterday’s victory target of 91 was never going to seriously challenge the team that’s dominated the Shield competition this summer, it did include a couple of anxious moments as Victoria’s feared fast bowling unit battled to the end.

Test seamer Scott Boland ended a season of stark contrasts for WA’s stand-in skipper Sam Whiteman who was pinned lbw before he had scored
It was Whiteman’s seventh duck of the Shield season, equalling the unwanted record held by former Australia Test quick Peter George whose first-class career batting average of 3.63 entitles him to accredited tailender status.

It also heralded a significant moment for Boland whose 300th Shield wicket means only former Test quick turned international umpire Paul Reiffel (318) sits ahead of him as more prolific with the ball for Victoria.

WA might then have slipped to 2-15 in the fifth over when Teague Wyllie drove lazily at a wide ball from Boland that flew above head-height to the left of Peter Handscomb at second slip who was unable to hang on to the sharp chance.

Nerves had settled by the time lunch was served, with the target reduced to 56 and Bancroft (13no) and Wyllie (18no) having ridden their luck in the overs immediately prior to the break
But it was smooth sailing under bright sunshine in the afternoon session as the pair of right-handers rattled on the remaining runs at the rate of more than three an over with barely a false shot.
Despite Victoria chasing the game from the time they were sent into bat and slipped to 6-129 on their opening afternoon, they held hopes of taking the game into day five when they resumed at 6-122 – nursing an overall lead of two – this morning.

WA’s victory push might have gained immediate impetus when Sutherland attempted to flick the third ball of the morning through mid-wicket but instead lifted a waist-high catch to mid-on
However, Lance Morris moved with all the alacrity of someone who had sent down 30 overs across previous days on a preparatory regime of net bowling in India, and the chance flew past his forlornly outstretched hands to the chagrin of the bowler, Matt Kelly.

Sutherland, who was forced from the field on Saturday afternoon with back soreness and dropped down the batting order to number eight because of the injury, then notched an impressive half-century to add to the 5-75 he claimed in WA’s first innings.

It rounded out a breakthrough summer for the 23-year-old allrounder who began this Shield campaign with a maiden first-class century against South Australia in Adelaide and ended it as the competition’s leading wicket-taker ahead of Shield player of the year Michael Neser.

But having surpassed his skipper Handscomb (52) to post Victoria’s highest individual score of the match, Sutherland found himself running out of partners as another batting wobble took hold.

Mitch Perry, the ‘night hawk’ who had survived almost four hours in scoring 75 in last year’s decider at the same venue, became the day’s first casualty when nicked off to Kelly three balls after Sutherland mutedly celebrated his milestone.

Next ball, Fergus O’Neill – who had marched to the wicket bristling with defiant resolve – turned and stalked back clearly fuming with disappointment after failing to cover a ball from Kelly that angled into the right-hander and thudded into his stumps.

Kelly was deprived of the first ever hat-trick in a Shield final when Test spinner Todd Murphy stoically defended but with the end nigh, Sutherland opened his broad shoulders in the vain hope of setting WA a target that extended beyond nominal

Victoria’s penultimate pair briefly raised the spectre of a challenging fourth innings run chase with a combative ninth-wicket stand that yielded 60 runs from 78 balls through a mixture of solid stroke play and calculated risk.

After Murphy holed out to point shortly after the day’s first drinks break, Sutherland’s hopes of finding the 18 runs needed to make history as the first player to score a century and claim a five-for in a Shield final relied on him hitting out in a hurry.

He fell 17 shy of that unprecedented feat when his attempt to clear the mid-off boundary failed by a few metres, and the toll taken by his bold knock of 83 from 84 balls was laid bare when he was unable to take the field as Victoria began their ultimately futile attempt to defend 91. (Cricket.com.au)