ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2016

The other talking-point concerned New South Wales’ ‘home’ match against Western Australia. With one eye on the forthcoming series between the two countries in New Zealand, and another on furthering bilateral relations between the countries, it was decided to play this match at Lincoln, near Christchurch, thus for the first time taking an ICC member’s principal first-class competition beyond the borders of the home country. The idea behind it was that, in the absence of any warm-up first-class matches on the Test tour, the Shield match would help to acclimatize some of the players in the Test squad – those not playing in the simultaneous ODI series – to conditions in New Zealand. In the end, only three of the 22 who played at Lincoln appeared in the subsequent Test series, but at least one of those three took full advantage: who else but the already in-form Adam Voges, who scored 149 in Western Australia’s only innings. The full scorecard can be found in the New Zealand section of the Annual, on page 232. The venture was designed to fit the particular circumstances of the moment, and there are as yet no plans to repeat it in future years. Back in Australia, the 2015/16 season saw three further first-class matches, other than Tests and Sheffield Shield games. One was the ICC Inter-Continental Cup match between Papua New Guinea and Ireland, played at Townsville in north Queensland and won, predictably, by the more experienced Irish side - though not before PNG’s left-handed batsman Asad Vala had added to his reputation by scoring his second, and PNG’s third, century in what was at the time only the country’s third first-class match. The other two matches were warm-ups by the New Zealand and West Indies XIs ahead of their respective Test series. The home side in both cases was styled a ‘Cricket Australia XI’. In December, the CA XI containing six players new to first-class cricket were ten-wicket victors against the full West Indian side. Of greater statistical interest, if little else, was the earlier game against the New Zealanders at the Blacktown Oval in Sydney. Here, CA’s openers Ryan Carters and Aaron Finch scored 503 for their first wicket over the first two days, whereupon the game had to be abandoned as the pitch on which the first-ever 500-run partnership in Australia had just been scored was becoming progressively more treacherous. Finch’s 288* was the highest score of the Australian season (Carters made a mere 209), but as a warm-up the game was of no value at all to the visitors. With 592 runs in the home series against New Zealand (including scores of 163, 116 and 253 in his first three innings), another 226 runs against the West Indies, and 107 runs in his only Shield match, David Warner was the leading runscorer of the Australian season, with 925 runs at 84.09. Not far behind was Adam Voges, with 908 at 100.88; if his 149 for Western Australia were added in, his ‘home’ season’s aggregate would be 1057 at 105.70. In the Sheffield Shield alone, the leading scorer was Tasmania’s Ben Dunk, with 837 runs at 46.50. South Australia provided the Shield’s and the season’s two top wicket-takers, with medium-pacer Joe Mennie leading the way with 51 wickets at 21.21 (a model of consistency: his figures did not include a single ‘five-for’), followed by opening bowler Daniel Worrall with 44 at 26.18. (KSW) Sheffield Shield 2015/16: Final table P W L D BatBP BowlBP Adj Pts 6 0 1 1 South Australia 10 5 5 0 6.63 13 0 49.63 2 Victoria 10 5 3 2 6.13 11 0 49.13 3 New South Wales 10 5 2 3 5.57 9 0 47.57 4 Queensland 10 5 5 0 7.66 9 0 46.66 5 Western Australia 10 4 3 3 7.00 10 0 44.00 6 Tasmania 10 2 8 0 6.69 10.5 -2 27.19 Tasmania: 2 points deducted for a slow over-rate in the match against Queensland on 6 November. FINAL: Victoria beat South Australia by seven wickets. 12 Australia in 2015/16