South Australia into Shield final after Queensland fail on bonus points

South Australia will play Victoria in the Sheffield Shield final after Queensland failed to register enough first innings bonus points against Tasmania despite the result of both games still being unknown.

The result means that Usman Khawaja, who was missing the match against Tasmania due to the birth of his third child, will not play another game for Queensland after confirming he would retire from first-class cricket at the end of the season.

Queensland were bowled out for 178 on day two of the match in Hobart after bowling Tasmania out for 198 on day one. Queensland started the final round in third place on the table on 36.38 points, 5.78 points behind SA who were on 42.16 in second spot behind Victoria's 57.98. Going into the round Queensland needed to win and SA needed to lose to Victoria for Queensland to have a chance but they have failed to gain enough bonus points in the first innings after SA posted 305 in their first innings against Victoria to bank 1.05 points.

In the Shield competition there are six points for a victory, and one for a draw, supplemented by bonus points which work like this: 0.01 of a bonus point for every run over 200 scored during the first 100 overs of their first innings (350 after 100 overs registers 1.5 bonus points), and 0.1 of a bonus point for every wicket a team takes during the first 100 overs of their opponent's first innings (ten wickets before 100 first-innings registers 1 point).

Queensland banked 1 point for taking 10 wickets but zero for failing to make 200 runs with the bat against Tasmania. At the time they were bowled out midway through day two, SA had taken three first innings wickets against Victoria to bank a further 0.3 bonus points which is enough to put them 6.13 points clear of Queensland. Even if SA did not take another first innings wicket, and if they went on to lose to Victoria and Queensland went on to beat Tasmania, SA would still qualify for the final via the bonus points.

It means Khawaja finishes his Sheffield Shield career on 93 matches including 29 for New South Wales and 64 for Queensland. He made 6510 Shield runs out of 15589 first-class runs at a Shield average 46.83 including 19 centuries out of 43 in his first-class career.

SA will face Victoria in the final at the Junction Oval in Melbourne starting on March 26. SA are chasing back-to-back titles for the first time in the state's history while Victoria are chasing their first Shield since 2018-19.

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