Agents of Shield

GH on the game nobody wanted

The Sheffield Shield final, eh? Mark Taylor wanted it scrapped, Malcolm Knox called it a ‘rotting carcass’, and the AFL shat on it from a great height, after which Tom Koutsantonis won this week’s OBN by calling them ‘great corporate citizens’. The AFL can be called many things, but their knack of getting the public to pick up the bill for their stadiums identify them as the grimiest sort of rent seekers.

Anyway, just when you’re resigned to the season finishing with an exhausted sigh, cricket gives a mighty roar. Grabbing advance attention with a delicious domestic spat in Brisbane, South Australia and Queensland provided a tour de force of a kind only possible in red ball cricket - big ebbs, huge flows and epic resistances, full of personal stories, like Jason Sangha’s third century in six innings, Jack Wildermuth’s second in three innings, Brendon Doggett’s iron man exertions and Callum Vidler’s skyrocket of teenage promise. All swallowed up in these heady post-match scenes, as the hosts recaptured the 133-year-old trophy after a twenty-nine-year hiatus.