South Australia win back-to-back titles after Victoria collapse

Updated March 30, 2026 — 5:16pm,first published 11:12am

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Victoria’s captain and coach called for the addition of DRS to the Sheffield Shield final after the home side’s disintegration inside 53 minutes on the final day handed South Australia back-to-back titles for the first time in the state’s history.

Resuming at 5-102 chasing 196 for their first Shield since 2019, Victoria lost 5-27 to surrender the final to a jubilant SA team, who had trailed Victoria in the standings for the whole season.

Led by a Queenslander in Nathan McSweeney, the SA side featured no fewer than nine players who had moved states, including six from New South Wales. SA have been nicknamed “NSW A” by some, and have been showing up the players once picked ahead of them.

Victoria’s last hope went with the wicket of teenager Ollie Peake, who was caught behind by Alex Carey off the bowling of allrounder Liam Scott, from a delivery that may have been a no ball – replays of the crease line were obscured by the non-striking batsman.

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There had also been numerous contentious lbw decisions across the game. While he was at pains not to attribute defeat to those calls, Victorian coach Chris Rogers made a strong point about the provision of DRS for the final.

“If you’re going to sell this as the sixth Test match of the year, then I think they should,” he said. “If you’re going to have a third and fourth umpire, I think you should. But this goes both ways and for the game you want to make sure it is given the value that it deserves.”

Skipper Will Sutherland concurred.

“It’d be nice if they can find the funds for it,” he said. “It takes a bit of uncertainty out of it, there were a couple of dicey no balls there as well, so you make sure the right decision’s getting made, if that can happen it would be handy.”

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After leading the Shield table all season, the 56-run defeat was a particularly bitter outcome for Rogers and Sutherland, as a year of consistent performance gave way to an abject collapse on the final day of the season.

“This one hurts the most,” Rogers said. “We went into those games [away finals in 2022 and 2023] massive underdogs and we kind of spent our tickets trying to get to the final. This time we planned well, we tailored it well to get our players in the best form, but we didn’t get the job done in the game.

“I think we could have been better, no doubt. The fourth innings of a game that has a lot of pressure does funny things to people, and these players will grow from that.”

SA’s victory was largely down to a combination of Carey’s sublime second innings century and the relentless seam bowling combination of Nathan McAndrew (3-50), Jordan Buckingham (1-27), Scott (3-32) and Henry Thornton (3-12). Test bowler Brendan Doggett had missed the final with a hamstring strain.

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After the last regular season game between the same two sides was played on a far friendlier pitch for batting, a much grassier surface made for an undulating contest but did no favours for Victoria’s top order batting.

Morning shadows were still shortening in the last week of daylight savings when Scott found Todd Murphy’s outside edge from around the wicket – as Stuart Broad had done to cap the 2023 Ashes series at the Oval.

McAndrew, who admitted to popping codeine painkillers to keep going at the end of a long season, followed up by winning a marginal lbw verdict against Mitch Perry, the angled ball flicking leg stump in the view of umpire Shaun Craig.

Held back behind those two nightwatchmen, Peake punched one McAndrew half volley down the ground with a puritanically straight bat, before Scott soon found the outside edge with another away seamer that was expertly pouched by Carey. The umpires checked for a no ball, but gave Scott the benefit of the doubt as his boot was obscured by non-striker O’Neill.

Top scorer for Victoria in the match with his first innings 64, O’Neill was joined by captain Sutherland with 76 required, and SA countered by introducing the extra pace of Thornton.

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Sutherland was immediately hurried, and when Thornton offered a tempting length ball on a wider line, the Victorian skipper drove on the up in Bazball fashion and was safely held in the slips. Thornton then smashed O’Neill’s stumps to hand victory to SA.

A lone visiting spectator ran onto the ground with the SA state flag, only to be told that the umpires were checking the no ball. It was a brief interruption before the SA celebrations began.

The aftermath showed evidence of strong common purpose on and off the field. A group of squad players paid their own way to be in Melbourne for the final morning of the game, while a hastily constructed SACA marquee - paid for by the visitors - was by far the noisiest quarter of an otherwise deserted Junction Oval.

“Last year was easy, this year was bloody hard,” said SA coach Ryan Harris, who started his cricket in Adelaide before learning much of what he teaches in Queensland. “That’s what makes this a little more special.

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Daniel Brettig is The Age's chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X.

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