Shield final - 2018

[Ken Gargett]

in all of the drama of the ball tampering et al, the poor old guys playing in the shield final have been almost completely forgotten. with a few over to go, Qld will either win the game and hence the title or draw the game and win the title that way, having finished first.

it is a strange system where a team can win the title/flag/shield/whatever you want to call it without actually winning the final but the old system was the EPL style season where the top team won automatically. i prefer having the final but the way the game is, the leading team is heavily favoured as they get home field advantage and only have to draw, not win the game. probably fair. 

and with the rain that has been about, poor Tassie had bugger all chance. to lose the first day to rain when there was no rain but merely that the field had not drained well from rain a few days earlier is unacceptable. 

there is one really interesting stat i noticed. not sure if it has happened before, though i am sure it must have. 

tassie put up a big score and gave themselves a great chance but qld more than matched that with over 500. and yet only two batsmen got into the 70s. what i noticed was that every single batsman either equalled (renshaw) or bettered (everyone else) their first class average. i can't recall seeing that before. the only exception was the number 11 who was not out on 11 (his average is 16 - not bad for a number 11) so did not get the chance. and in the second innings, so far all batsmen again exceeded their first class averages. what a great team effort. 

perfect time to do that!