The seasons over and the team with only slimmest hope going into the last round finished on top of the table.
Congratulations to the Croweaters.
Batting
SA Head 699 (6), Lehmann 609 (11)
Vic Dean 642 (8), Handscomb 611 (10)
NSW Patterson 738 (3), Cowan 509 (16)
Qld Renshaw 738 (4), Heazlett 649 (7)
WA Bancroft 732 (5), Klinger 617 (9)
Tas Dunk 838 (1), Bailey 761 (2)
Good mix of the young and old.
Tassie had the two highest run scorers, Head's late run put him up to 6th and became SA's leading run scorer.
Cowan was NSW's second highest scorer despite being 16th on the list. Patterson best of the new batsman with a excellent second half of the season.
Bowling
SA Mennie 48 (1), Worrall 37 (4) - Sayers 32 (7)
Vic Tremain 32 (6), Boland 31 (8)
NSW Bollinger 27 (11) , Copeland 26 (12)
Qld Hopes 28 (9), Wildermuth 25 (13)
WA Hogan 37 (3), Paris 35 (5)
Tas Bird 40 (2), Fekete 28 (10)
Congratulations to Joe Mennie, leading wicket taker. Did anyone pick that at the start of the season ?
SA had 3 of the top 7 bowlers. NSW didn't have a bowler in the top 10 and Qld only had one.
Tassie had two bowlers in the top 10.
Paris the up and comer this year.
Surprising how few of the bowlers played a full season. Copeland only played 5, Paris 6 and Sayers 7. Only Mennie and Ahmed played all 10 games.
Spinners
Ahmed 23 (14)
O'Keefe 17 (21) - 6 games
Swepson 17 (22) - 6 games
Lyon 12 (24) - 4 games
Zampa 10 (30) - 5 games
Agar 9 (35) - 7 games
Ahmed only took 2 wickets in the last 3 games. O'Keefe ave 24, Ahmed ave 34, the others were nigher.
Not the best year for the twirleymen.
SA had the consistent bowling and Head almost singlehandly winning the last 2 games with bat
Vic had a consistent team performance up till the batting fell apart in the last 3 games. Quiney, Dean, Handscomb hardly scored a run. They were doing well till Maxwell went on Rep duty, he had had a consistent season in the middle order. And the points for the SCG game ended up being the only reason they made the final.
NSW were all over the shop all year. Patterson's consistency in the second half and Copeland's come back almost got them into the final, Dougeh carried the bowling. Cowan went missing and losing SOK after 6 games also cost them.
Qld almost made it to the final on James Hopes's back. Some good games from their younger batsmen but their inconsistency and the lack of depth in the bowling showed up in the end.
WA Klinger and SMarsh carried the batting but despite some good performances the younger batsmen were inconsistent. Hogan carried the bowling but Paris had some good games. Losing Behrendorff early in the year didn't help.
Tassie The two highest scoring batsmen, the second highest wicket taker and still finished bottom, shows up the lack of depth in the team. A disappointing year.
Up and comers
SA Joof Lehmann
Vic Dean
NSW Patterson
Qld Renshaw Heazlett, Swepson
WA Cartwright, Paris
Tas Kingston
So the season
Only 5 draws from 30 games
Quite a few games over in 3 days, were the pitches better or worse this year? They certainly didn't help the spinners
Did they give too much help to the journeymen medium pacers ?
Shield final
The season would give support to those arguing to do away with the shield final. Four teams in with a chance going into the last round and the fourth team winning. But if Vic had of won one of the last 3 games it would have been over early.
Final to be played at Glenelg
Carn the Vics