Manenti leads fightback after early Paris blitz

So highly regarded within Australian cricket is Western Australia left-arm swing bowler Joel Paris he was advised by national selectors he was on standby for this year's Ashes should a like-for-like replacement be needed for Mitchell Starc.

As events unfolded, Paris remained on the bench in Australia but his potency was underscored in his first Marsh Sheffield Shield outing of this summer when he tore through South Australia today.

The 30-year-old picked up four wickets in his opening spell this morning and finished with 6-74 and it was only some late-order defiance that enabled the Redbacks to reach 264 in reply to the reigning Shield champions' first innings of 241.

WA's openers Cameron Bancroft and Sam Whiteman faced a testing 35 minutes prior to stumps this evening, though their task was aided by the initial absence of SA's first-innings destroyer Wes Agar (6-42) who appeared to twinge his lower back in scoring 17no at the end of the Redbacks innings.

They resume tomorrow at 0-8 (off nine) overs, having reduced the margin in another bowler-dominated game to 15 runs.

Paris was part of the Australia A team that played a series against New Zealand A in Brisbane prior to the domestic season getting underway, but picked up a hamstring injury that sidelined him from the first two matches of WA's Shield defence.

"I was really frustrated, I had a really great pre-season and I'd been up and going since April or May and was on standby for the Ashes," he said at day's end in Adelaide.

"I felt as physically good as I ever have, so to have a little hiccup like that was frustrating at the time but to have it then is probably better than having it in the middle of the season when you miss more chunks of cricket.

"I didn't feel quite right yesterday evening so I wanted to make sure I started the day really well."

Paris duly destroyed SA's top-order by pitching full and gaining subtle movement to snare four wickets in the opening hour today, before returning to complete a five-wicket haul shortly after lunch and getting the Redbacks top-scorer Ben Manenti (86) with the second new-ball.

"I felt like bringing the stumps into play was the key, and my strength is to get the ball moving whether it's through the air or off the wicket and trying to make them play as much as I could," Paris said.

"A lot of their strengths are square of the wicket, so I wanted to take that out."

"Sometimes you get these rhythms when you feel really good, and this morning was one of those so I just ran with it."

The tall left-armer now has 141 first-class wickets at the skinny average of 21, having claimed 27 at 17.4 from his seven matches in WA's Shield-winning campaign last summer.

It places him among rare company with ex-Australia Test seamer Jackson Bird the most recent to reach 150 Shield wickets with an average below 22 (20.05), and before him it was legendary firebrand Jeff Thomson who reached the milestone at a cost of just 19.5 runs per scalp.

It was largely due to Manenti's contribution with the SA lower-order that his team was able to pocket a first innings lead, having lost 4-22 from 52 deliveries in the opening hour then slumping to 6-109 midway through the day.

The spin-bowling all-rounder seemed set for a maiden Shield hundred having holed out for scores of 88 (off 121 balls) and 82 (off 96) in his maiden season for SA last summer, with both of those innings made in the face of top-order collapses from his specialist batter teammates.

But having reached 86 from 106 balls today after going to the wicket with SA again in dire strife at 6-109, Manenti swung Paris to the deep backward square fence where a catch was claimed by Teague Wyllie just metres inside the rope.

Manenti's batting prowess has prompted suggestions his talent might be better utilised higher up the order than his current number eight berth, which would in turn allow the Redbacks to play a fourth seamer instead of the three they have deployed in the past two games.

However, despite rueing another missed opportunity to reach triple-figures for the first time in Shield company, the 26-year-old can see the benefits of the status quo.

"There's been a couple of conversations around it," Manenti said of a possible promotion.

'I think at the moment it's probably best for the team balance, but I'll do whatever the team needs me to do.

"I've found at six that being at slip, bowling and batting at six you don't get a chance to switch off so I don't mind seven and eight, a bit more time to shut down and have a rest and think a bit.

"Whichever it goes, one day maybe if I'm around for long enough I might end up at six but we'll keep going week to week."

He also concedes he might need to temper his naturally aggressive strokeplay the next time he finds himself within sight of a century, if he is to go one step further than his string of near misses.

"Yeah, that actually crossed my mind today," he said.

"I don’t think the batting coach talks to me now when I get out in the 80s.

"Hopefully it will come eventually … one day it might click and get there, but if not I'll keep doing whatever we need to get to a score."

His cause might be benefited if granted the chance to get to the middle and playing free-swinging game with a sizeable total already behind him, rather than dire scenarios such as the one he faced again today.

Having breezed their way to 0-27 off six overs prior to stumps on day one, SA encountered stiff head winds from the opening over of day two when a rare wide from Paris stood as the only addition to their overnight score.

Out of sorts opener Henry Hunt drove at the fourth ball of the day and was caught behind, taking his season aggregate to 60 from five innings with a high score of 26 in the first innings of last week's Shield win over New South Wales.

Equally short of runs is Redbacks number three Daniel Drew, second-highest scorer in the competition last summer behind Bancroft, whose 12-ball duck today gives him 57 from five starts in this campaign.

Drew might consider himself unlucky to have been adjudged lbw to a ball from Paris that appeared to strike him outside off stump, but his pronounced movement across the crease made him vulnerable to the left-armer's searching length and he had survived two confident shouts earlier in his 16-minute stay.

His case was also not aided by the fact he looked to be walking towards the SA dressing room before umpire David Taylor had raised his finger.

SA's early stumble became a free-fall when opener Kelvin Smith's enterprising 32 (from 37 balls) ended with an ill-judged cut shot at a Paris delivery that clipped the top of middle, and skipper Jake Lehmann befell a similar fate although his stumps were rattled by a ball that pierced his forward defence.

At that stage, the Redbacks were 4-49 having lost 4-22 in less than an hour's play, with Paris's figures for the morning showing an extraordinary 4-6 from six overs (including four maidens).

SA's in-form Nathan McSweeney dug in with former WA batter Jake Carder to stem the bleeding and forge a dogged fifth-wicket stand of 60 from 187 balls before both fell in the space of three deliveries.

McSweeney chased a wide ball from Paris in the search for badly needed runs, and handed Paris the sixth five-wicket bag of his eight-year first-class career and deprived the Redbacks right-hander of his third successive half-century having posted 64 and 100 against NSW last week.

Carder, recalled to the SA line-up as a replacement for explosive hitter Jake Fraser-McGurk who missed with a hamstring injury, provided a marked contrast scoring 21 in more than two hours before tickling a catch down the leg side from spinner Corey Rocchiccioli.

At 6-109, SA were staring at a significant first-innings deficit until Manenti found a willing ally in Harry Nielsen (34) for an 83-run seventh-wicket partnership, then aspiring all-rounder Wes Agar to carry the Redbacks past WA's day one total.

Sheffield Shield 2023-24 standings

Team	Matches played M	Wins W	Losses L	Drawn D	No results N/R	Deductions Ded.	Batting Bonus Bat	Bowling Bonus Bowl	Total points PTS
1 Western Australia Men WA	10	5	2	3	0	0	5.53	9.4	47.93
2 Tasmanian Tigers Men TAS	10	5	2	3	0	0	6.06	8.3	47.36
3 NSW Men NSW	10	4	3	3	0	0	6.31	9	42.31
4 Victoria Men VIC	10	4	4	2	0	0	4.74	8.2	38.94
5 South Australia Men SA	10	3	6	1	0	0	5.19	9.3	33.49
6 Queensland Bulls QLD	10	2	6	2	0	0	3.54	8.3	25.84

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Wins

L: Losses

D: Drawn

N/R: No results

Ded.: Deductions

Bat: Batting Bonus

Bowl: Bowling Bonus

PTS: Total points