ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2017

to rise consistently to the challenge of unfamiliar conditions. Australia might be thankful that their first Test commitment of 2017/18 would be at home: an Ashes rubber against an England side with some serious problems of its own. The Sheffield Shield table in 2016/17 was headed by the same two sides as in the season before, South Australia and Victoria, but in reverse order: Victoria were easily top after a hugely impressive season in which they started with four straight victories and eventually won outright no fewer than seven of their ten matches. Second place was tightly contested between South Australia and Western Australia, who both finished the season with identical records of five wins offset by the same number of defeats; South Australia, however, secured a marginally better return in terms of bonus points. And so for the second year in succession Victoria and South Australia contested the final. The unavailability of the Melbourne Cricket Ground meant that Victoria forwent the home advantage to which they were entitled as league leaders, but it made little difference as they easily batted South Australia out of the game: a result that was no more than justice considering that Victoria had not only dominated the league stage but had done the ‘double’ over South Australia in the process. It was the 31st time Victoria had claimed the Shield title but the first occasion in their long history that they had done so for a third consecutive season. In Shield matches alone, Australian Test reject Ed Cowan of New South Wales struck most runs with 959 at 73.76, but across the first-class season as a whole the list was headed by Usman Khawaja of Queensland and Australia, with 1013 at 63.31. South Australia’s medium-pacer Chadd Sayers led the wicket-takers with 62 at an outstanding 19.00; he was followed at some distance by another cricketer whose first-class appearances were exclusively in the Shield, Jon Holland (slow left-arm) of Victoria, who claimed 50 victims. Chris Hartley, a stalwart of Queensland since 2003/04, had the distinction of overtaking the Sheffield Shield record of 546 dismissals by a wicketkeeper, formerly held by Darren Berry who appeared for South Australia and Victoria between 1989/90 and 2003/04. Hartley ended the season with 550 victims to his credit (c535, st15). (JCB) Sheffield Shield 2016/17: Final table P W L D BatBP BowlBP Pts 6 0 1 1 Victoria 10 7 2 1 8.31 9.0 60.31 2 South Australia 10 5 5 0 8.34 8.9 47.24 3 Western Australia 10 5 5 0 6.88 8.6 45.48 4 New South Wales 10 4 3 3 10.20 7.4 44.60 5 Queensland 10 4 5 1 8.33 8.2 41.53 6 Tasmania 10 1 6 3 3.64 7.0 19.64 FINAL: Victoria drew with South Australia but took the title by virtue of winning the league stage. 12 Australia in 2016/17