Sheffield Shield final ending in another draw hardly a great advertisement for first-class cricket
Updated
With Australian Test cricket enjoying a revival and the Big Bash League thriving, the Sheffield Shield is not doing itself any favours.
Today Victoria finished a five-day bat-a-thon, winning the title via a draw with South Australia.
Having batted for the best part of the opening two days for 487 runs — at a run rate under 3 — Victoria skittled the Redbacks for a 200-run lead late on day three, effectively ending the match as a contest.
The Bushrangers finished on the top of the table, so they did not need a result to win the Shield, and kept batting until the task was impossible for South Australia.
Marcus Harris's day-one ton and man-of-the-match Jon Holland's first-innings seven-for were the most decisive individual performances, though Travis Dean and James Pattinson more than pulled their weight with the bat.
It is an unfortunate but not easily solvable problem that the season is so often robbed of its best players by Test series, but the issues run deeper than personnel.
Moving the final to Traeger Park in Alice Springs was a good call.
Watching Australia's best cricketers play at the MCG or the Gabba and hearing the crack of bat and ball turn into an awkward echo around the empty expanses must feel like a dagger in the heart of every Aussie cricket traditionalist.
Giving top-flight sport to audiences who don't always get the chance to see it is a good tactic, often utilised for one-off rugby league games that are losing steam — recent examples include the City v Country match and the All Stars game.
But did the game truly exhibit the best of Aussie cricket?
Slowing things to a crawl was Victoria's prerogative, but it hardly seems like the best thing for a competition that is bordering on irrelevance with the general public.
During the season, SA's Chadd Sayers took a record 62 wickets. Did you know?
Could you name the top run-scorer for the season? A few could, sure, but not many. (It was Ed Cowan with 959, by the way)
The Sheffield Shield matters
The first-class competition is a hugely important part of deciding Australia's Test team, as we found out late last year.
We caught a brief glimpse of what life could be like in mid-November, when Australia's selectors were hunting for some talent in the wake of the embarrassing capitulation to South Africa at Bellerive Oval.
All of a sudden, names like Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Matt Renshaw and Kurtis Patterson were on the tips of everyone's tongues.
Suddenly, Australia's first-class scene mattered again.
It lasted a week.
Once Handscomb, Renshaw and Nic Maddinson became the chosen ones, it was time for Shield to return to the back of the cupboard like an old jar of pickled onions — never to be seen again until a recipe specifically called for just that.
Indeed, these days Shield cricket only seems to have cut-through on the incredibly rare occasions when there is a nation-wide search for players or someone like Pat Cummins is returning from injury.
It simply cannot afford to have the climax of a five-month season end in a draw about half the time.
Make things interesting
In 2015, Western Australia coach Justin Langer described Shield finals thusly: "It's like torture watching it."
Most Test teams draw between 25 and 40 per cent of their matches. It isn't as if this is a rare occurrence at the best of times, but four of the past eight Shield finals have been drawn.
Maybe it is fair to give the ladder leaders an advantage in the deciding match, although whether it needs to be as big as draw-equals-win is up for debate.
Why not do away with the coin toss and just give the Vics the choice to bat or bowl from the outset?
It could be argued this is a bigger advantage than being able to play for a draw, but it would not impact the quality or style of cricket. Both teams would still be playing for a win.
"But," you cry, "What happens if there is a draw? Who gets the Shield?"
Perhaps a 50-over game the next day. Or a Twenty20 if you really want to throw a spanner in the works.
This is sport. The aim should be maximum entertainment.
And that is not to say draws are not entertaining. Australia's fighting effort on day five of the third Test in Ranchi was as nail-biting as anything on that tour, but having one side eyeing off a 'no result' for five days is not the same thing.
If Cricket Australia is fine with Shield cricket being a low-key farm system for the Test side, then that's fine.
But if it wants to avoid total irrelevance with the general public, the competition cannot afford to stand still and that has to start with its 'showpiece' event.
Topics: cricket, sport, alice-springs-0870, nt, vic, sa, australia
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