NSW remain winless as rain washes away final day push

NSW are still winless in the Marsh Sheffield Shield this season after rain washed away their push for a final day victory against Tasmania at the SCG.

The hosts were set to resume day four needing 10 wickets to open their account for 2022-23 after setting the Tigers an enticing fourth innings chase of 287.

But the rain set in before play and didn't abate until about 2.30pm, but the outfield was too wet to allow play to resume with the match officially declared a draw an hour later.

It leaves NSW dead last on the Sheffield Shield table with three losses and four draws and still 12.51 points adrift of the Tigers in fifth place.

Daniel Hughes (178 and 63no) had led a NSW dominance across the first three days of the contest but Ben McDermott (50) and Beau Webster (75no) frustrated the hosts on day three with a 72-run sixth-wicket stand that helped push the match into a fourth day.

Adam Zampa and Sean Abbott each picked up three wickets in the first innings as Tasmania were bowled out for 236 in reply to the hosts' 8(dec)-417.

Hughes then smacked a quickfire half century to allow NSW to declare late on day three, tempting Tasmania with a gettable final day chase that Webster said they definitely would have taken on.

"We scrapped enough to get to a reasonable deficit that we can hang on and they dangled the carrot nicely there for us to have a crack at it on day four," he said post-play on Monday.

But it wasn't to be as by the only time the players returned to the field on Tuesday was for a game of 'solleyball' (a soccer-volleyball hybrid) with Tasmania finishing 0-6 in their second innings when the match was called about 3.30pm.

The other results this round (Victoria beating Queensland and South Australia beating Western Australia) have fallen in NSW's favour to keep their season alive with the four teams behind WA bunched together in the middle of the table.

But NSW will need convincing wins in their remaining three Shield matches of the season to be any hope of reaching second spot to qualify for the decider in late March.

The teams do battle again on Thursday in a Marsh One-Day Cup fixture at North Sydney Oval.

NSW XI: Daniel Hughes, Blake Nikitaras, Kurtis Patterson (c), Moises Henriques, Jason Sangha, Matthew Gilkes (wk), Sean Abbott, Chris Green, Chris Tremain, Adam Zampa, Liam Hatcher

Tasmania XI: Tim Ward, Caleb Jewell, Charlie Wakim, Ben McDermott, Jordan Silk (c), Tim Paine (wk), Beau Webster, Jarrod Freeman, Tom Andrews, Nathan Ellis, Peter Siddle