Vics to retain Shield, thanks to batting strength

With only three rounds completed so far of the Sheffied Shield 2014/15, it may be premature to be calling a winner, however, a look over the form and pedigree of the batting line ups of each team gives a strong indication that in the batting stocks, the Vics are the strongest unit in this year’s Sheffield shield.

Even with the dual retirements of Chris Rogers and David Hussey, the Vics come out on top in almost all analyses, which is a credit to the succession planning of former coach Greg Shipperd, who wasn’t afraid to limit the games of Hussey last year and to drop the underperforming Cam White, to stick with his younger guns in Handscomb and Stoinis throughout the season.

New coach Saker has also shown his willingness to leave out seasoned professionals such as Aaron Finch and Clint McKay who have struggled in first class cricket of late, and include youngsters like Travis Dean and Scott Boland.

The fact that two players who were recently regulars in Australia’s ODI team are now toiling away in futures league fixtures speaks to the depth of talent in Victorian cricket. I am sure Cam White and Clint McKay have a lot to chat about over a beer after a long hot day in the field for the second string Victorian team.

So let’s have a look over the stats that back this up:

First, let’s compare the form from last season of the top six batsmen plus a couple of other significant contributors for each shield team. We can then come up with a “team average” based on the top six run scorers from last year (excluding those that are no longer playing for the same team, or have retired):

Team average (top 6 run scorers) : 46.34

Unsurprisingly, the next best team is WA, and they may have come out on top of Victoria had it not been for the elevation of Adam Voges to the test team. With Shaun Marsh out for the next couple of shield games, they may be further weakened, however, Bosisto has shown glimpses of good form, so may step up.

Team Average: 42.07

NSW come in third, significantly benefitting from the addition of the in-form Ed Cowan to their squad. If you take away his runs, which were scored for Tasmania, their average would diminish significantly.

Then again, Peter Nevill scored a lot of runs for NSW last year, and he is excluded due to his Test duties. As we can count on the likes of Steve Smith and Dave Warner to be absent for probably the whole season, they won’t be benefitting from their extra runs either.

Team Average: 40.61

South Australia rely heavily on the experienced trio of Callum Ferguson, Tom Cooper and Mark Cosgrove, and will hope Travis Head can deliver on the promise shown so far to boost their team average. Younger players Kelvin Smith and Alex Ross will need to step up or be overtaken by Jake Lehmann.

Team average: 39.31

Queensland look to be seriously weakened in their batting with Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja being called up to the Test team. They may get a few games out of them in the later part of the season, but they must be hoping that Chris Lynn gets fit quickly and youngsters Sam Heazlett and Mark Renshaw continue to deliver as they have so far this season. Scott Henry could also be a significant contributor going by his recent form.

Team average: 33.76

Languishing on the bottom of the table is Tasmania, who will be feeling the loss of Ed Cowan. The Tasmanians are banking on the success of youngster Jake Doran and hoping that the good form shown early by Ben Dunk can be sustained throughout the season.

They will also be hoping that experienced duo Bailey and Doolan recover some form after both had relatively poor seasons last year.

Team average: 27.18

So there we have the team rankings based on form from last season. But what, I hear you say, about the old adage, “form is temporary, class is permanent”. Righto, let’s look at career Shield averages for the top six of each team, and then we can work out the ”team career shield average”.

Again, the Vics end up on top, the team average significantly boosted by the massive average of 183 for Travis Dean after only two games. I therefore added a more realistic calculation, substituting Dean’s average for that of Mathew Wade, giving the more realistic team average of 37.99, still number one.

WA drop down to fifth on the list, which is probably somewhat indicative of the good recent form of their older hands like Shaun Marsh and Klinger, and of young Bancroft compared to their more distant form/ shield records.

Queensland jump up the table into third, due to the elevated average of 69 for Sam Heazlett, again a young fella with only a few matches under his belt. If you take that out, QLD drop down to a lowly career shield average for the top six of 28.11. Then again, add in Chris Lynn and numbers 7 and 8, Hopes and Hartley, and the duo of Lynn and Forrest, who are currently out of the team, and the average bumps up again. Basically, their top 6 is unproven and probably quite weak, whichever way you look at it.

NSW, with a solid group of consistent performers comes out second, and SA have a mixed bag, with the older fellas being consistent and the young guns needing to boost their career averages with a strong season this year.

Tasmania, again, finish last.

Whilst it is probably too early in the season to do a good analysis of batting form for the 2015/16 season, the Victorian top six are all firing early, with Dean making an amazing start to his career, ably backed up by the ever reliable Quiney, the considerable talents of Stoinis and Handscomb and the mercurial middle order of Finch and Maxwell all of whom have scored at least 1 fifty in the two matches to date.

Victoria’s batting dominance is combined with the handy bowling line up of Siddle and Pattinson – when they are not playing in the test team- backed up by the season’s leading wicket taker in 2014/15, Fawad Ahmed and consistent performers Hastings and Boland. This should make them favourites to retain the Shield in 2015/16.