Search for an allrounder answered in a golden hour

Australia's selectors have waited a decade to unearth a player capable of cracking a century and grabbing a five-for in a single Sheffield Shield match.

Then today they found a pair of them within an hour, with Queensland's Michael Neser and Western Australia's Ashton Agar completing the feat barely a few hundred metres from one another in the opening round of this season’s competition in Adelaide.

Prior to Neser reaching his maiden first-class hundred with consecutive pull shots to the mid-wicket boundary off Tasmania's Riley Meredith, the previous player to pull off the double was Queensland-born WA recruit Mitchell Johnson in November, 2010.

Neser's effort after claiming 5-32 in Tasmania's first innings on Saturday was remarkably similar to Johnson, who also scored 121 batting at number eight and then followed up with 5-35 against Victoria at the MCG ten years ago.

But no sooner had the hubbub of Neser's achievement at Gladys Elphick Park subsided than Agar, who posted a career-best Shield tally of 114no against South Australia at neighbouring Karen Rolton Oval yesterday, clinched his double in even more remarkable circumstances.

The left-arm spinner's fifth wicket came courtesy of a return catch chipped back at him by younger brother Wes, in a manner doubtless similar to numerous dismissals in the family's backyard contests.

Ashton's Agar's innings a day earlier had enhanced his claims for inclusion in Australia's Test squad this summer, which is expected to be significantly larger than usual for the upcoming four-match Vodafone series against India due to the COVID-19 restrictions on player health and replacement protocols.

Having famously come within a boundary of a Test hundred on debut at Trent Bridge in 2013 (albeit batting at No.11), his batting prowess is well known to those who have seen him as a possible long-term allrounder, especially in spin-friendly sub continental conditions.

Neser has gained growing renown as a handy lower-order batter, but was demonstrably delighted to reach triple-figures for the first time with Queensland nine wickets down and fears growing that No.11 Mitchell Swepson might leave him stranded in the 90s.

He said a Sheffield Shield century had remained a dream for him, having posted 11 scores between 50 and his previous best of 77 (against WA in Perth in 2012-13) with four of those unbeaten when he ran out of partners or batting time.

Today, he had been told by skipper Usman Khawaja he had time to reach his goal as he wasn’t considering a declaration until the time reached “38 minutes past” 3pm, but he initially thought the pull shot he hit to reach triple figures wasn’t going to make it to the boundary rope.

"It's special,” Neser said of his breakthrough knock in his 84th first-class innings.

"A couple of times I've been stranded in the 70s and 60s and one of my goals was to score a century in Shield cricket.

"Now that I've done it, it's a bit of a weight off my shoulders and hopefully I can get another one."

Neser revealed he has been working on his batting during an off-season when his bowling was hampered by a nagging groin injury, but claimed the workload he carries as leader of the Bulls’ attack precludes him from shifting higher up the batting order than the No.8 berth he occupied today.

"The amount of bowling I've done in the past, it's quite unrealistic for me to start at six," he said.

"And our top-order is quite solid at the moment with their positions, so I don't see myself moving any higher.

"But I have done a lot of work on my batting.

"I suppose the off-season gave me a chance to get volume into my batting as well and I've done some minor changes, but nothing too major.

"I suppose with a bit of confidence, it all helps."

After witnessing at painfully close quarters last year the impact England's match-winning allrounder Ben Stokes can wield in the Test arena, the search for the next great swing man in Australia has gained greater urgency.

Mitchell Marsh was viewed as a front-runner to take on that role against India if an allrounder was deemed essential, until he sustained an ankle injury that forced him home from the Indian Premier League last month.

Marsh’s WA teammate Cameron Green is touted as a future Test player but is currently not bowling at Shield level having suffered back stress fractures last summer, and Australia under-19s representative Liam Scott is currently playing just his second first-class match for SA as he finds his feet at senior level.

But the honour board of allrounders to have completed the hundred/five-wicket double across almost 130 years of Shield competition indicate it's as rare as it is coveted.

In more than 2200 Shield games during that time, only 26 players can lay claim to the double that patrons in Adelaide could have witnessed twice today if they carefully timed their stroll from one venue to the other.

West Indies legend Sir Garfield Sobers – rated the greatest all-round cricketer of all time – managed it four times inside three seasons when playing for SA in the 1960s.

Monty Noble achieved it three times for New South Wales either side of the turn of the 20th Century, while ex-Test players Doug Walters (NSW) and Phil Carlson celebrated it twice during the 1960s and 70s.

Former Test captains Warwick Armstrong, Richie Benaud and Bob Simpson have their names on the list, as does Steve Smith who scored an even hundred and snared 7-64 for the Blues against SA at the SCG in 2009-10.