Agents of Shield

Peter Lalor on the Shield final and machinations within.

Peter Lalor

THE Sheffield Shield final began this week with some notable inclusions and instructive absences, not least of them the WA state captain Mitch Marsh and his fellow all rounder Cameron Green.

Veteran Matthew Wade, however, has swum against the tide.

Having announced this was his last season of red ball cricket, opted to delay his departure for the IPL season in order to play for Tasmania.

Wade, who grew up playing in the backyard with Tim Paine, won four titles with Victoria but has never experienced that thrill with his home state.

The veteran plays for Gujarat in the Indian competition but did not take the field in last year’s tournament and was apparently not going to be missed.

WA’s Justin Langer was recently appointed coach of that outfit and could have sabotaged Tassie’s final had he been bloody minded enough.

Recently elevated Test batting all rounder Cameron Green, fresh from centuries in his last Shield and Test outing, is skipping the chance to play for his state and is at the IPL ready for the first game.

His state captain and rival Australian all-rounder Mitch Marsh has also opted for the IPL over the five day game that commenced Thursday at the WACA.

Their absences from the Shield final have barely raised an eyebrow.

Australian cricket appears to have accepted that such decisions are financial and not personal.

It has also accepted that it’s a battle not worth fighting.

If Cricket Australia was ever going to have stood in Green’s way it would have been last year when there was a Border Gavaskar trophy, Ashes, Test championship final and World Cup all crammed into the 2023 calendar.

But Green stood to earn in a couple of months what most of us would struggle to earn in a couple of decades and foolish would be the administration that would force a player’s hand in such a scenario.

The IPL proved not to be an ideal tune up and Green lost his place in the team to Marsh during the Ashes.

Note that Australia opted to give him a recent first class match with WA rather than call him up for white ball duties and were subsequently rewarded by his brilliant 174no in the Wellington Test.

Marsh had been absent on Australian duties all year and has barely played a game for his state in recent seasons. 

It’s not easy for cricket’s administrators.

Oh to have the luxury of India where the first class season is not eviscerated by the Premier League.

Indeed, the BCCI only recently sent a warning to players that they better start turning up to first class cricket or they would find themselves excluded from the national side.

Speaking on Neroli Meadow’s Around The Wicket show this week Tim Paine noted wryly that Marsh’s IPL coach, Ricky Ponting, had done the right thing by Tasmania in insisting that Marsh come to India, but said the overall situation did not sit right with him.

Paine says that the Sheffield Shield final is Cricket Australia’s domestic “show piece” and should be protected.

Simon Katich had a bit of an each way bet, saying he understood why the players were compelled by their franchises to show up on time, but suggested it shouldn’t be too much of an ask for them to skip the first couple of games to compete in the Shield final.

There are other absentees from the final.

Former Test opener Cameron Bancroft has, alarmingly, been ruled out after suffering concussion in a cycling accident.

The irony of a man who once boasted he had the hardest and heaviest head in Western Australian cricket being concussed is not lost but it is a blow to the man who has been critical to his state’s success.

Bancroft has scored three centuries and four half centuries this season and is the competitions second highest run.

Tasmania’s Beau Webster’s 914 runs at 65 is the only player in the first class summer to score more than Bancroft’s 778 at 49. On nine occasions he has scored 50 or more for his side and three times gone to three figures.