Victoria have the edge after Holland takes three
In a season both tightly fought and topsy turvy, taking opportunities
has been vital. South Australia floated near the back of the pack before
making a late burst to host the Sheffield Shield final. regained his place in the Victorian side just in time to play the innings that scraped them in to face South Australia.
No team or individual, though, timed their run quite like .
In the course of little more than a week, he has leapt from sitting
outside the Bushrangers' best XI to contending for a berth on
Australia's July Test tour of Sri Lanka. Holland tipped the competition
decider strongly towards Victoria in an outstanding spell on the third
evening, leaving the Redbacks scrambling to build a lead at Glenelg
Oval.
On an eventful day, brought up a notable century, Cameron White shepherded the tail, compiled figures of 6 for 96, and 10 wickets fell. Victorian chagrin at
was then channeled into a passage of high-energy and high-pressure
cricket to corral South Australia. Holland accounted for Mark Cosgrove,
Travis Head and Jake Lehmann, while captain Matthew Wade ran out Sam
Raphael.
There was no more fitting measure of how the match has progressed than the fact that Victoria's two young batting talents,
and Handscomb, both fought their way to hundreds against South
Australia's all-seam attack. Their opposite numbers in Head and Lehmann
failed in both innings, the free-spirited exuberance of their best
batting seemingly suffocated by the occasion, to the obvious
disappointment of 2,864 expectant spectators.
The young opener, Jake Weatherald, bunkered down in the company of Alex
Ross after the loss of four wickets in the space of 10 overs, but they
have an enormous amount of work to do to set a defendable target. The
hosts have also been handicapped by a leg complaint afflicting their
spearhead Chadd Sayers, leaving an enormous load for Worrall and Joe
Mennie to carry.
The day began with a four-over-old ball in the hands of South
Australia's seamers, and Mennie soon pinned nightwatchman Scott Boland
lbw. Handscomb was fortunate when he twice edged Worrall between slips
and gully to the third man boundary, but there was nothing streaky about
the cover drive that took him to three figures. The Redbacks were left
to ponder how a fit Sayers might have fared against Handscomb and White,
who mixed stern defence with plenty of power.
It took the Kensington product Eliot Opie to find a way past Handscomb,
who played fractionally inside the line of a well-pitched ball that sent
the off stump cartwheeling. This opened up an end for Worrall, who had
swung and seamed the ball consistently and beaten the bat countless
times. He prompted a drag-on from Dan Christian, had Chris Tremain lbw
next ball, and beat Holland outside off stump with a an excellent
attempt at the hat-trick.
At that point the Bushrangers led by only five runs, but Holland hung
around to add a priceless 54 with White that allowed the visitors to
pressure South Australia when they batted a second time. Autumn sun
broke through the clouds for just about the first time in the match and
helped Weatherald and Cosgrove to start in relative comfort. It was
during this phase that the ball tampering penalty was levied.
However, Holland bowled with considerable guile and sharp spin
immediately after tea, varying his pace and flight intelligently and
winning a bat-pad catch verdict from the umpire Paul Wilson to defeat
Cosgrove. Raphael's brief stay was ended when Wade ran him out, and Head
looked markedly uncomfortable against deliveries biting out of the
footmarks.
Head had made an uncharacteristic single from 14 balls when he touched a
Holland delivery on its way through to Wade, and next ball Lehmann
still seemed haunted by the sharp turner that had defeated him on the
first day when a tentative prod was squeezed to short leg. Holland was
admired by the former selection chairman John Inverarity, and while
injuries and team balance have kept him on the fringes of the Victorian
side, he has performed repeatedly when asked.
Before the Alice Springs match against New South Wales in which he
claimed six wickets, Holland's previous state call-up had been in a Top
End fixture the year before, when he pouched eight against Tasmania to
claim the Man-of-the-Match award, before promptly being dropped for the
final. This time around Holland has grabbed his chance, and Australia's
looming subcontinental assignments over the next 12 months mean there
may just be more than a Shield title at the end of it.
