Cliff Notes – Pope out as South Australia hope to break 29-year drought
- Legspinner Lloyd Pope will not play in the Sheffield Shield final as South Australia opts for an extra seamer, aiming to end a 29-year title drought against Queensland.
- Captain Nathan McSweeney confirmed Pope’s exclusion, citing the expected conditions at Karen Rolton Oval, which favour seam bowling over spin.
Pope out as South Australia hope to break 29-year drought
Legspinner Lloyd Pope will not get the chance to play in the Sheffield Shield final as South Australia look set to opt for an extra seamer in the hope of breaking a 29-year title-winning drought against Queensland.
Captain Nathan McSweeney confirmed on Tuesday that Pope will be squeezed out of the XI against Queensland. Pope has taken 21 wickets at 25.95 in five Shield appearances this season, including match-winning bags of 6 for 74 against Victoria and 4 for 76 against Tasmania, but both of those came at Adelaide Oval.
He took 3 for 84 from 26 overs last week against Queensland at Karen Rolton Oval, where the final will be played. But both sides are expecting more moisture and grass in the surface and South Australia are likely to welcome back seamer Brendan Doggett and seam-bowling allrounder Liam Scott into the line-up after both were rested last week, meaning Pope is one of the men to miss out.
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“Lloyd’s been great for us this year and his efforts are a great reason why we’re here and playing in a Shield final,” McSweeney said. “I think Karen Rolton Oval is typically a tough ground to bowl spin on. The wicket has a little bit more moisture in it. So hence we’re going with an extra [seam] bowler. It’s a tough decision, but I think when you’re in finals you’ve got to make tough decisions. And unfortunately he’s the one that’s missing out.”
Wicketkeeper Harry Nielsen is the other member of South Australia’s 14-man squad that will definitely not feature, having being left out for the last match due to Alex Carey’s return from international duty.
McSweeney would not confirm the final XI but it appears likely that one of Henry Thornton or Jordan Buckingham will be squeezed out to make room for Doggett.
Thornton’s incredible late season form makes the selection decision extremely difficult. He was the Michael Bevan medallist as player of the match in the Dean Jones Trophy Final, taking 4 for 27, and has since bagged 4 for 42, 3 for 44, and 3 for 90 in the last two Shield games having been a late replacement for Nathan McAndrew when he was rested against Victoria.
Buckingham, meanwhile, has taken 21 wickets at 25.76 this season and bowled well for Australia A this summer. Doggett has likewise starred for Australia A in between taking 22 scalps at 29.86 fin Shield cricket.
South Australia did not push for an outright win against Queensland last week to conserve energy ahead of the final. They had the Bulls 86 for 5 after piling up 614 for 7 declared but ended up needing 113.5 overs to bowl them out for 370 as the surface flattened out, with Jimmy Peirson and Jack Wildermuth posting lower-order centuries.
“I think the wicket looks like there’ll be a little bit more life in it, slightly more in it for the bowlers,” McSweeney said. “But I think typically here it’s hard to take 20 wickets. There’s no doubt about that. We’ve got an extra day to try and take them now, so I think it’ll be a really good cricket wicket.”
The weight of history sits heavily on the South Australian team despite it being made up of a lot of players from interstate. They have not won a Shield since 1996 and have not played in a final since 2017 or hosted one since 2016. Carey and Jake Lehmann will be the only two surviving members of the 2015-17 group to play in this week’s decider, while Conor McInerney is set to be the only other home grown South Australian in the XI.
But despite the squad being made up of so many recruited players, McSweeney believes their journey together and their struggles over recent seasons in building a tight-knit team culture means a Shield triumph would mean as much to them as it would to the rusted on SACA members who have been starved of success for so long.
“A lot of the boys have come from interstate,” McSweeney said. “We’ve been giving opportunity for a team that hasn’t had heaps of success, but we’ve been able to build it over the last few years as a group, and that’ll just cap it off I think.
“We’ve had a fair bit of change, but I think the core group of players have been here for a long time now, and we’re slowly starting to see the success from all the hard work, and that’s paying off now. It’ll mean so much and hopefully we can get it done.”
South Australia squad: Nathan McSweeney (capt), Jordan Buckingham, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Henry Hunt, Jake Lehmann, Ben Manenti, Nathan McAndrew, Conor McInerney, Harry Nielsen, Lloyd Pope, Jason Sangha, Liam Scott, Henry Thornton
