Siddle's late strikes hand Tigers the edge in Shield

Two late wickets to Peter Siddle swung the balance of a knife-edged Marsh Sheffield Shield game against South Australia marginally in Tasmania's favour heading into day three.

Having helped his team eke out a hard-fought 17-run first innings lead, Siddle took the ball in the gathering gloaming to dismiss Redbacks opener Henry Hunt (8) and promoted tailender Harry Conway (0) in the space of three deliveries to have the hosts 2-21 and just four runs in ascendancy.

Hunt was undone by the ex-Test quick's exquisite skill when he nicked a late outswinger that was brilliantly plucked in one glove by former Australia captain Tim Paine diving low to his right in front of first slip.

Conway's removal was far more prosaic, with his airy swing at the second ball he faced presenting Paine with a much simpler chance and indicated he had not studied the subtle art of nightwatchman duties as practiced so famously by his coach, Jason Gillespie.

The Tigers also felt they had Hunt's opening partner Jake Weatherald pinned lbw for 5 with Jackson Bird in disbelief when his appeal was denied, but the remainder of SA's batting will need to push their lead beyond 250 tomorrow if they are to wrest favouritism in such a tight tussle.

The evenness of the contest is underscored by the almost mirror image of both teams' first innings with the bat.

SA's 227 was underpinned by Jake Lehmann's 73 with the only other score above 25 being the counter-punching half-century from number eight Ben Manenti.

Likewise, Tasmania could only find two batters able to push past 25 with opener Tim Ward's 82 the stand-out performance before Beau Webster came in at seven and took the attack to the Redbacks before holing out one blow short of 50.

"It was seaming around all day; it's definitely not flat," Ward told cricket.com.au at day's end.

"It's a lot of hard work out there so it will be interesting over the last couple of days.

"I think it will still seam around tomorrow so it's a good opportunity for our bowlers.

"We would have loved one more (wicket) tonight, but that's pretty greedy.

"If we can get two, maybe three tomorrow morning I think we'll have a red-hot crack and hopefully roll them by tea."

Image Id: 3BFD350D509C40E2853A447EB6854C58 Image Caption: Wes Agar picked up four wickets // Getty

While the Tigers’ day one bowling was headlined by evergreen Test-capped seamers Bird and Siddle, SA's comparatively inexperienced attack was led by Wes Agar's return of 4-34 from 19 high-energy overs.

Agar was called upon to bend his back when SA adopted a short-ball strategy against Ward who stood resolute for almost two sessions today but was at his most threatening when he pitched fuller and extracted movement from the pitch that continues to offer encouragement.

Ward admitted he was happy to see Agar "run in and tire himself out" and was equally comfortable to duck beneath most of the bouncers aimed at him, but Agar felt it was a worthwhile strategy even if he was the one called upon to implement it.

"It's about doing what's needed to be done at that time and we tried a lot of things at Wardy who batted really well, so it was time to go to that plan," he said this evening.

"It looked like it worked in the sense that we dried up the scoring a bit, and we still had a slip and a gully at that stage so we could still bowl that full ball.

"I thought it was a decent plan."

Not only did Agar and Jordan Buckingham regularly challenge Tasmania's top-order when they attacked the stumps, they were backed by some sharp catching close to the wicket.

Ben Manenti, who snared a stunner late on day one, added another classic to his catalogue when he plucked a shoulder-high chance that flew fast to his right off Bird, having discarded the helmet he donned when fielding closer to the bat at second slip earlier in the day.

Tasmania had started their pursuit this morning at a good clip, with Ward and batting partner Jake Doran scoring at more than four per over in the opening half hour.

But as has proved the case for the first half of this match, wickets fell whenever all but a select few batters appeared to be coming to grips with conditions.

Not only did that apply to Doran (11) whose attempt to keep up the pace yielded a catch to gully, but also Ben McDermott who looked to have settled in when he lifted Conway for six over square leg but was caught behind off Agar soon after.

Either side of those dismissals, Ward posted with 50 with consecutive boundaries struck consummately through the covers from the bowling of Nathan McAndrew.

The left-hander, who relocated from New South Wales to Tasmania to further his first-class aspirations, began last summer with a bang when he posted scores of 144 and 81 in the season opener against Queensland that was played in Adelaide due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Image Id: 43D2D4E89FF84DF6813053AD937A60B1 Image Caption: Tassie opener Tim Ward's 82 was the Tigers' stand-out performance // Getty

But the 24-year-old was unable to recapture that touch for the remainder of his first full season with the Tigers, reaching 50 just twice in his next dozen innings and then began this summer with scores of 15 and 22 in Tasmania's hefty defeat to Queensland in Brisbane.

"I just haven't cashed in," he said of his frustrating run of starts without posting a sizeable score.

"But my game's in a pretty good place if can bat for 200-odd balls like I did today, so I know a big score will come and hopefully a few big scores this year.

"There was probably a brief stage between 30 and 50 today when I felt like I got a lot of balls to score off and felt pretty comfortable, but other than that it was tough work all innings."

Ward's partnership with skipper Jordan Silk loomed as crucial in Tasmania's attempt to reel in SA's first innings total – which the Redbacks acknowledged was 20-30 runs shy of what it should have been – having resumed after lunch 122 in arrears.

The introduction of Manenti's off-spin midway through the session brought a change of pace in more ways than one, as Silk signalled his intentions by charging down the pitch to a couple of deliveries of his opening over.

However, it was Agar's canny skill that brought the breakthrough when he found a fuller length and nipped the ball through Silk's usually watertight defence to clip the off bail which set off a new celebration the fast bowler had promised his teammates.

"I was really happy with the ball was coming out at that point, and it was tailing a little bit," Agar said.

"I had two balls to go in that over and I wanted to get one to go back in, so I thought first I'd try to swing it away but luckily for me it nipped back.

"So I think I'll thank my stupidity in a way -  I probably should have been telling myself 'just keep doing what you’re doing mate, don't change too much'.

"But having played our last few games at Karen Rolton Oval where traditionally it's pretty flat, I think that's teaching our bowlers really good lessons to bowl good line and length.

"At Karen Rolton you get hurt a lot if you give batters width because of the wicket, so you have to be very disciplined and I think it benefited us out here.

"It builds a bit of robotic-ness in terms of our lengths and where we want to bowl the ball and you're under pressure to do that on flat wickets, so when you get on a wicket that's nipping a bit you're able to not think too much about it and just go about your business."

Paine also didn't want Manenti to settle, aiming an aggressive reverse-sweep at the fourth ball he faced before succumbing tamely to the next when he bunted a sharp catch from the face of the bat to short leg.

The desire to dominate the spinner eventually cost Ward his wicket when, after a studious stay of almost five hours during which he habitually left deliveries passing wide of the stumps and over his head, he opted to take on Manenti.

But his attempt to lift Manenti over the leg side having reached 82 from 289 balls faced brought about his demise when caught the inside half of his usually broad bat and lobbed a simple catch to mid-on.

That meant Tasmania had slipped from 2-103 to 6-177 in almost 30 overs, and in much the same way Manenti bludgeoned SA to a respectable score on day one it became Beau Webster's responsibility to take his team to a first innings lead.

The allrounder received handy help from tailenders Jarrod Freeman (6 off 33 balls), Jackson Bird (4 off 20) and Peter Siddle (7no off 18) and seemed set to match Manenti's rearguard half-century until he fell to the Redbacks' far-flung field setting.

With three set against the rope on the off-side and a further four stationed on the leg-side boundary, Webster decided to take them on and it took a brilliant running, diving catch from Jake Carder to end his knock on 46.