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After a Moises Henriques seemed to have batted Western Australia out of the Sheffield Shield 2013-14 final, Josh Hazlewood brought the title that much nearer for New South Wales with a devastating spell of five overs that broke the batting back.
The two sides had gone into the second day of the final without any one of the two teams really in front.
A couple of quick wickets early on the second day would have allowed Western Australia to restrict their opponents to a more manageable figure and given them a fair chance on a slow pitch.
The exact opposite of that happened.
Moises Henriques, who had started the day off on 24, went on to get to his second century this season. Even then, it seemed like it had only whetted his appetite and he looked to carry on his good work before being finally dismissed for 140.
What made it tougher for Western Australia was that the bowlers weren’t able to make frequent inroads at the other end either.
Steve O’Keefe chipped in with 41, Trent Copeland made 35 and Nathan Lyon continued to remain difficult to dislodge down the order adding 36 valuable runs too.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, the reverse swing which had been so prominent on the first day disappeared totally at the start of the second. Even the decision to take the second new ball did not result in much return, as New South Wales piled on 447 batting first.
Western Australia needed to survive only nine overs in order to try and start afresh from day three. In doing so they lost four wickets and in turn seemed to have almost conceded the title to the Blues.
Hazlewood breathed fire from the word go, getting rid of Cameron Bancroft and Marcus Harris off the first two balls of the innings.
While the hat-trick was averted, he also had Adam Voges snicking one to the slips, and when he was not bowling, he contributed to the wicket-taking with a direct hit that sent Marcus North packing.
Western Australia still have Shaun Marsh at the crease and he has overcome his early nerves to get off the mark and face 20 balls. If he can bat out the first one hour, he could look to continue in the same vein as he had in the second innings of their previous match against New South Wales.
However, Sam Whiteman and brother Mitchell will need to give him solid company and get big scores themselves to even think of competing with their opposition – forget winning from here.
Join me for this Sheffield Shield final on Sunday and you can follow the live score of this game from 10:30am local time and post your comments below.
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