Tassie on top despite Buckingham's career-best

Despite missing a handful of regular starters and another couple that departed pre-season, Tasmania hold the upper hand in their Marsh Sheffield Shield match against South Australia thanks to a couple of dominant sessions at either end of day two.

But their grip on the Shield season-opener would likely be vice-like if not for a career-best 7-71 by SA seamer Jordan Buckingham who scythed through the visitors’ lower-order to singlehandedly keep his team afloat.

At the game’s midway point, Tasmania hold an overall lead of 27 with the Redbacks’ second innings in the balance at 3-47 after another horror start that saw the home team crash to 3-10 inside eight overs this evening.

Nathan McSweeney and first innings century maker Jake Lehmann saw their team through to stumps although the SA skipper copped a fearful blow to the batting helmet in the penultimate over from Mitch Owen that saw him undergo a lengthy on-field concussion test.

At lunch today, Tasmania were 2-222 in reply to SA’s first innings of 307 and might have been eyeing a lead of 150 given Charlie Wakim’s boundary-laced century and his hefty second-wicket stand with opener Caleb Jewell who finished today’s first session 87 not out.

Wakim would likely have struggled to find a place in Tasmania’s top order if not for the absence of Tim Ward (concussion protocols) and Jake Doran (split webbing), who joined injured quicks Riley Meredith and Nathan Ellis on the sidelines for the season opener.

Furthermore, Tasmania have found need to replace veteran seamers Jackson Bird and Peter Siddle who returned to their home states for 2023-24, meaning they entered the SA fixture as an unknown entity if not outright underdog.

"I’ve been in and out for the last couple of years, so any time I get an opportunity it’s crucial that I take it," Wakim said at day’s end.

"There’s been a few opportunities, I’ve had the spot for a bit then fallen out when someone like Wadey (Matthew Wade) has come back from Australia.

"I’m just pleased to take the opportunity early in the year."

Wakim played just the one Shield match last season – where he made nine in his only innings against New South Wales – and prior to today boasted a single first-class century in a career stretching back to 2019.

However, the 32-year-old is known to South Australia given that hundred came in the right-hander’s debut appearance at Adelaide Oval when his 160 scored across almost eight hours led Tasmania to a six-wicket win.

Furthermore, Wakim’s older brother Ben was a prolific scorer for Adelaide University in the Premier Cricket competition over recent years before returning to the family’s home state NSW.

Buckingham’s return was his first five-wicket haul at Shield level and topped his first-class best which was the 6-58 he claimed for Australia A in New Zealand in his maiden international outing earlier this year.

It also pipped Queensland seamer Gurinder Sandhu’s 6-57 against SA two summers ago as the best individual bowling effort at Karen Rolton Oval, and the best by an SA bowler on home turf since Chadd Sayers’ 8-64 against New South Wales at Adelaide Oval in 2019-20.

It completed a creditable post-lunch fightback after lunch by SA’s bowlers after Tasmania’s second-wicket pair Wakim and Caleb Jewell scored with such impunity the Redbacks were forced to adopt innovative tactics and turned to a barrage of bouncers.

From 2-222 at the major break, Tasmania’s last eight wickets fell for 159 with Buckingham picking up seven of them as SA forewent the short-ball tactics and targeted the Tasmanians’ stumps.

"We were just going to try something there, Jewelly was batting really well so we looked short for a little bit there and it ended up working out without much harm," Buckingham said tonight.

"But I still feel the length (targeting) top of the stumps is the most difficult on this pitch, and as we’ve seen you can get a bit of reward when you get the stumps in play.

"You’ve got to be able to do everything as a fast bowler, especially in Shield cricket.

"At times it can get a bit difficult out there so you’ve always got to be willing to try things, but I’m definitely a line and length bowler."

The home team’s comeback started soon after the break when the wiry quick claimed his first, in-form opener Jewell succumbing to the Redbacks’ short-ball plan when he was neatly caught low down at fine leg.

In his next over, Buckingham reverted to his strength which is targeting the stumps and gaining subtle movement off the pitch to have Jordan Silk caught at second slip.

SA might have struck another decisive blow had keeper Harry Nielsen been able to hang on to a diving chance that brushed ex-Test batter Wade’s glove from a Brendan Doggett lifter.

Wade and Beau Webster wrested back momentum to add 83 for the fifth wicket before Doggett had his man from one of a number of deliveries that kicked off a length at the northern end of the new drop-in pitch.

From there, Buckingham demolished the second half of Tasmania’s innings with three of those final five bowled and another two adjudged lbw.

Wakim had been granted a reprieve late on day one when, having reached 25, he slapped a stinging return chance that spinner Ben Manenti was unable to hold diving to his left.

But come today’s first drinks break, Tasmania had rattled along to 1-161 and shortly after the resumption SA skipper Lehmann engaged in a lengthy conversation with coach Jason Gillespie while fielding on the deep cover boundary.

Gillespie had been an interested spectator during the second Ashes Test at Lord’s earlier this year, where Australia had responded to the ‘Bazball’ onslaught by England’s top-order batters by resorting to a short-ball strategy that ultimately won them the match.

It was around the time of the boundary-side chat that SA employed a similar blueprint with Doggett undertaking the ‘grunt’ role of principal bouncer bowler in a bid to break the second-wicket stand that had surpassed 150.

But SA’s morning was perhaps best summed up when Manenti tried to stop a firmly hit straight drive from Jewell that rebounded from his hands and into his groin at pace, leaving the spinner sprawled on hands and knees mid-pitch as his teammates stifled unsympathetic smiles.

Having overtaken his batting partner after a flurry of boundaries, Wakim reached his second Shield ton from 132 balls faced (with 19 fours) as the pair’s union closed in on 200.

It was broken on 189 when the short-ball ploy paid off, thanks largely to a spectacular overhead grab by Drew at backward point off Doggett that ended Wakim’s stay on 110.

Doggett might have enjoyed further success in his next over had Smith held a tough chance diving forward at deep backward square when Jewell miscued a pull on 84, but the reprieve meant Tasmania went to lunch 2-222 and eyeing a first innings total of 450-plus before Buckingham’s intervention.