South Australia beat NSW to end 17-game Shield drought

A career-best knock from Nathan McSweeney and a sparkling innings from Jake Lehmann have lifted South Australia to a drought-breaking Sheffield Shield win against NSW at Karen Rolton Oval.

Set a testing target of 326, South Australia reached 5-328 with six overs to spare after 17 matches without a win dating back to February 2020.

Needing to score at nearly four an over, Lehmann kept the hosts on track with a boundary-laden 94 off just 89 balls.

McSweeney played the anchor role to perfection, ending unbeaten on 99 from 183 balls.

The allrounder hit a boundary for the winning runs but fell just shy of a maiden century, with his seven previous matches producing a best of just 35.

Lehmann and McSweeney shared a pivotal fourth wicket stand of 151 from 34 overs.

There were also notable contributions from Jake Carder (46), and rookie captain Henry Hunt (25) who finished as the second highest run-scorer of the regular season with 601, just 16 runs in arrears of Victoria captain Peter Handscomb.

Lehmann took a liking to Tanveer Sangha, but the leg-spinner had his revenge when a mishit sweep shot was sharply taken by Matthew Gilkes at square leg.

Wicketkeeper Harry Nielsen steadied the chase in the final half-hour and put victory beyond doubt with 34 not out from 37 balls.

The final-round win, however, was not enough to lift South Australia from bottom spot on the Marsh Sheffield Shield standings.

"It's really nice to get a reward and come away with a win … hopefully the wheels are in motion for us to move forward and continue some momentum into next year," Hunt said after the match.

"It was quite nice that NSW wanted to force a result.

"There's obviously some youth in both sides in NSW having some of their key members out and then obviously we had three debutants as well, so to allow our boys to, I guess, learn how to win and be put in a situation that tests them competitively is a great learning curve."

The result means NSW, who went into the match harbouring outside hopes of a spot in the final, finished the season in fourth narrowly behind Tasmania.

Earlier, an injury-hit NSW resumed on day four at 4-235, piling on 72 in just under an hour to allow debutant captain Jason Sangha to declare at 8-308.

Young left-hander Lachlan Hearne completed his highest first-class score before being bowled for 65 by McSweeney (4-89).

The right-arm off-spinner then dismissed Chris Tremain for a golden duck only for the Blues to close their innings ahead of his hat-trick ball an over later.

Allrounder Jack Edwards was the other main contributor for the away side with 38 off 44 balls.

The Sheffield Shield season concludes next week when Western Australia host Victoria at the WACA.