Australian cricket's future, and its past, on show in Adelaide

Australian cricket enjoyed a glimpse of its batting future and then its past as Shaun Marsh peeled off a century after Will Pucovski's 17-hour batting marathon finally ended on Monday.

Pucovski maintained his incredible start to the season as he reached his second double century in as many games, before one of the Shield bubble's other standout batsmen Marsh scored his third century in four games.

Cameron Green missed his chance to match Pucovski's feat of endurance as his promising knock ended on 56 when he was dismissed by Jon Holland after 174 balls.

Both Green and Pucovski have made compelling cases for inclusion in Australia's extended Test squad to face India this summer, but it has been the Victorian who has done so the most emphatically.

Marsh, who has admitted another Australian recall has likely passed him by, finished the day not out on 104, only three runs behind Pucovski among the competition's leading run scorers this season, though the Victorian's tally has admittedly come from two innings to Marsh's six.

The WA captain peppered the off-side boundary on the way to a 181-ball hundred as he and Green rescued WA from 2-20 to leave them 4-198 at stumps, trailing by 216.

Two late wickets to Holland will be encouragement for the Victorians chasing their first win of the season, with the left-arm spinner having both Green and Hilton Cartwright caught at slip, the latter from a ball that spat off the pitch and took the shoulder of the bat.

Where Pucovski had caught the eye largely with his crisp back-foot play, the towering Green made use of his imposing 199cm frame and unfurled a series of front-foot drives down the ground.

He did rock back, however, to bring up his half-century by launching Mitch Perry for a mammoth six over midwicket that landed in the garden beds north of the ground's gleaming pavilion in a rare expression of aggression.

But it was his partner Marsh who upped the pace in their 141-run third-wicket stand as the veteran wound back the clock with some dazzling stroke-play.

The 37-year-old made his opponents pay after Simon Mackin, making his Victorian debut against the side he took 101 first-class wickets for, dropped a difficult tumbling chance at deep square leg when Marsh was on 58.

Passers-by would earlier in the day have had no reason to suspect history was being made if they walked past Karen Rolton Oval as Pucovski continued his march towards yet another milestone.

The right-hander resumed on 183 but it was his captain Peter Handscomb who raised his bat first as he passed fifty, before all eyes swiftly locked back onto the prodigious 22-year-old.

A few speculative lbw shouts aside, Pucovski remained largely untroubled as he scampered back for a second run from an inside edge to fine leg to become the first Victorian in almost 100 years to score double centuries in as consecutive games.

After 457 runs without dismissal to begin his season, Pucovski's wonder streak concluded in somewhat of an anticlimax when an extravagant back-foot flick found the hands of WA's sub fielder, Ashton Turner, at mid-wicket.

The ensuing declaration batting was equally anti-climactic as Handscomb, who made 84 to ensure Victoria's top three had scored all but 57 of their 414 first-innings runs, declared before lunch in a bid to give his side ample time to bowl WA out twice, and perhaps bat again.

Matt Kelly finished as the pick of the WA bowlers with 3-84 including the elusive scalp of Pucovski, before later facing 15 balls without scoring to do a successful job as WA's nightwatchman.

Victoria looked to have wasted the awkward period before break for WA's openers when Mitch Perry conceded 14 off his first over, but the young quick and his more experience counterpart Scott Boland flipped the dynamics completely before lunch as they removed Sam Whiteman and Cameron Bancroft in consecutive balls, although the latter appeared dismayed to have been adjudged lbw to Perry for five.