South Australia remains top of the Sheffield Shield standings after a rollercoaster match against Western Australia at the WACA.
The only thing that felt normal about this Shield clash was the toss of the coin as Western Australia and South Australia met at the WACA Ground on Saturday afternoon.
Ben Manenti successfully won the toss and chose to bowl on a wicket that looked like it may favour the bowlers, and that it did.
Besides a solid resistance from Sam Fanning (49) in the first session, wickets were shared and fell consistently across Western Australia’s innings, a trend that we’d see for the full match.
Jordan Buckingham (3-35), Liam Scott (3-10) and Brendan Doggett (2-24) were the pick of the bowlers and discovered quickly that there would be reward for balls pitched full.
The batter’s edges were beaten on many an occasion, resulting in multiple edges through to the slips cordon and Harry Matthias, who impressed with his clean glove-work in the absence of Harry Nielsen.
Western Australia was bowled out for 120 in only 42.4 overs and the visitors were sent in, hopeful of building an early lead.
Jason Sangha (45) was impressive with the bat, playing within himself and not chasing the moving ball outside off stump.
Outside of this, South Australia struggled early on before Daniel Drew was able to enter and stabilise the innings with 26, before he also fell to the spicy WACA wicket.
It was a rearing delivery from Cameron Gannon (1-32) that saw the end of Sangha and Brody Couch (4-33) was able to clean up the tail without much trouble.
The end of the innings saw the end of the day’s play, with 20 wickets falling in total.
Returning on Day Two, spectators were eager to see Western Australia stand up to the WACA pitch and settle into the match, but it wasn’t to be.
Nathan McAndrew and Buckingham (3-27) struck straight away, having the visitors 2-0 inside the first two overs.
2-0 turned into 3-2, which turned into 4-9, which turned into 5-13, following a wonderful display of opening bowling from the pair.
Ashton Turner (30) dug in with Keaton Critchell (11) and were able to build a significant partnership in the context of the game, before the two opening bowlers returned and cleaned them up quickly.
From there it was all Nathan McAndrew, claiming the cheapest 7-fa in Sheffield Shield history and an unbelievable 7-11 at an economy of 1.16.
Requiring only 63 to win, it was evident that we weren’t going to see a Day Three in Perth, in fact, we weren’t even going to see a third session on Day Two.
Henry Hunt fell in the first over for a duck and Western Australia were left with a glimmer of hope that a similar collapse to their own could be on the cards in this run-chase.
Conor McInerney (23) and Sangha (24*) brought some positive stroke-play and aimed to break the hearts of the hosts.
It looked like there may have been another epic turn in this match as South Australia quickly lost another three wickets, as well as creating two further catching chances that were dropped in the field.
Sangha was able to partner up with Daniel Drew (10*) and see South Australia to a win in the day’s second session that would keep South Australia in top spot of the Sheffield Shield standings.
South Australia will remain in Perth ahead of a One-Day Cup match against Western Australia on 13 February.