PhoenixFire said:
As I'm not too clued up about the Aus state system, could someone in the know give me a 1-6 ranking of how good the state sides are, ie.
1) NSW
2) SA
...........
I don't think there is a clear ranking. There are at least four sides that could reasonably win either competition this season, and all of them are competitive. There's also the difference in the formats. Last year no team made both finals, with NSW beating SA in the one day final and Queensland beating Victoria in the four day final.
With all the internationals available I think NSW are probably the best side all-round, given they'd add in McGrath, Lee, Clark and Clarke, and they've got great bowling depth with Bracken, MacGill etc also there. However, a lot of their better players are often missing with Australia, and their batting is quite weak aside from Jaques and Haddin at the moment. The return of Katich helps, but they are still not likely to win anything this year.
Queensland have been the most consistent domestic team in the last 5-10 years, winning the Pura Cup a number of times, and are pretty competitive again this year, and Tasmania are probably the most promising side, with a whole bunch of extremely talented youngsters like Hilfenhaus, Birt and Paine. Tasmania are probably the most consistent of the domestic teams when the international regulars aren't available, as they keep all their players (bar Ponting). They are on top of the Pura Cup ATM and looking likely to finish high up.
South Australia are a mid-strength sort of team with a pretty good attack including Tait, Rofe and Gillespie and some decent spinners, and their batting is pretty good on paper too, but aside from Lehmann they haven't performed this year. Should be a competitive side anyway.
The weakest teams right now are definitely Western Australia and Victoria. WA are pretty crap at the moment in the Pura Cup, mainly because of their weak bowling, but even they win the odd game. They almost beat NSW in a four dayer today, and they're doing quite well in the one dayers this season. Victoria lack batting depth like NSW, and they also have a pretty weak bowling attack at the moment because of injuries. When the likes of Denton and Harwood are fit they are much better though, especially in the longer form. Denton was probably the form seamer in the entire competition before he got injured again.
www.cricket.com.au has results and live scorecards etc. So does the Australian country site on cricinfo.