Tassie is in this match up to their neck at lunch on final day with three of Vic top order back in the sheds and still 210 to win. My danger man is young Harry Dixon who played a very mature knock in f/i. I know tho that he has both gears as he destroyed the Poms in the Junior Ashes 18 mths back. May well be a moot point as will Hobart's fickle weather have the final say.
I was at most of the Tas/Vic Shield match for the two days, Richie.
When Will Sutherland joined the brilliant Handscomb in the 90s, it looked like he had a Shield batting average of 40 plus. But it was only an average of 18.5 over 42 games. He looked to have specialist batter quality shots. Then he got out at 18.
Tas then went on to take the last 3 poles pretty quickly, to win by about 20 runs. The drinkers amongst Tas members went straight down to a local craft beer bar for a piss up to celebrate!
The consensus from the members, and we disagree on a lot, was that Jordan Silk had a shocker as captain and batter. He scored something like 1 and 0 in his two knocks. Then he refused to bowl spinners McMillan ? and Radnikrishnan at all! He should have bowled them at about the 40 -50 min mark. Without Neil- Smith ( injured after 4 overs), he bowled Bell and Elliott into the ground. The former took 6 for the match the latter 10 wickets, I think.
Silk also used O'Connor.
I've finally found the speed gun! We think it was inaccurate, recording the bowling speeds of the Tassie bowlers. Silk mainly used the first three, until he used Hope late in the game.
I'd drop Silk as a batter and captain for the last game. Poor captaincy, despite sneaking the win - and - poor batting, totally out form. We have Test players Webster and Kuhnemann in for the next Shield game, plus new white ball star , Owen, from his South African T20 sojourn.
Bell - 124 -129 kph.
Elliott - 122 - 130 kph.
O'Connor - 118 - 127 kph.
Hope - 123 - 127 kph.
Elliott and Bell were naggingly accurate. Both bowled something like 25 -28 overs today.
Weatherald scored 40 odd in the first innings, and than a big 100 in the second. The inform Ward scored 27 and 40 odd .
Also, impressed by Matt Elliott's nightwatchman son, Sam. Harper looked good too, until he got out.
Webster is as quick as any of the Tassie guys on the Bellerive installed speed gun! Not sure if the 150 kph Meredith ( in the BBL) will be back for the away game against South Aus in the next round in Adelaide?
Had a good look at Fergus O'Neill, Vic, the leading wicket taker in the Shield comp this year. Not a tall bowler, at his 120 kph pace ( I didn't see where the speed gun was placed in the Vic bowling innings.) Looks like he is accurate most of the time and must give the ball a wobble at his pace. Thought Bell out-bowled him in this game.
