South Australia have sprung to life this season but it's been anything but an instant turnaround
SA's long, dark journey to 'overnight' success
South Australia's rise from perennial whipping boy to pacesetter in the men's domestic cricket competitions has been an overnight transformation five years in the planning.
Having collected seven wooden spoons across the Sheffield Shield and One Day Cup since 2017-18, SA's rise to 50-over champions and favourites for the Shield title this summer has led many to ask what has suddenly and miraculously changed.
But in truth, the seeds for the green shoots that are finally bearing fruit were sown in April 2020 when former Test batter Michael Hussey was commissioned by the SA Cricket Association to examine why their men's outfit was so unerringly unsuccessful.
The 60-page Hussey Review, of which only an executive summary has been publicly released, included the damning conclusion that men's cricket in SA suffered from "a culture of mediocrity" and found numerous areas requiring urgent change.
Among Hussey's recommendations was a need to overcome weaknesses in SA's bloated 13-team Premier Cricket competition by improving its recruiting and targeting the 10th-15th best players on interstate lists as well as signing the foremost uncontracted under-19 players from around the country.
"There will have to be an element of letting go of the past and focusing on the future," Hussey wrote in his review.
The report was received by then SACA president Andrew Sinclair and former Chief Executive, the late Keith Bradshaw, a month before Jason Gillespie was confirmed as coach to replace Jamie Siddons, and with player contracts for 2020-21 already finalised.
Among that cohort were emerging interstate talents Wes Agar (from Victoria and originally signed on a rookie contract in 2016-17), rookie Liam Scott (an Australia under-19 representative relocated from New South Wales) and Henry Hunt who had played for ACT/NSW Country in the national Futures League.
But the following summer, at the board's behest and amid criticism from local clubs they were shunning home-grown talent, Gillespie, SACA high performance boss Tim Nielsen and talent and pathways manager Shaun Williams set about rebuilding SA's list.
Their first signing was a genuine coup when Queensland fast bowler Brendan Doggett, who had been chosen in an Australia Test squad and was part of Shield title wins with the Bulls, moved to Adelaide to realise his ambition of leading a pace attack.
Doggett's recruitment brought an added bonus in his Queensland teammate and close friend Nathan McSweeney who also sought greater opportunities after five Shield appearances in three years for the Bulls.
Gillespie's belief that the toughest leap for any emerging cricketer is from club (weekend) ranks to four-day competition led to the pursuit of raw-boned allrounder Nathan McAndrew who had years of second XI experience with NSW but precious few chances at first-class level.
And the need to create fast-bowling depth given the attritional nature of that skills set saw Williams scout out uncapped Victoria quick Jordan Buckingham, then aged 21 and eyeing a lengthy list of rival pacemen ahead of him in Melbourne.
That summer also signalled the end for veteran Test-capped players Callum Ferguson and Chadd Sayers who had been indefatigable servants for SA but were in the autumn of their careers, while NSW-born Dutch international Tom Cooper and allrounder Cameron Valente were cut adrift.
The revamp failed to yield on-field results and SA again finished bottom in the Shield and second-last in the One-Day Cup, as the net was then cast further afield for attributes beyond simple batting or bowling ability.
NSW seamer Harry Conway was sought out because his extrovert nature and leadership aspirations were deemed an invaluable addition to a group that was unnervingly quiet on-field.
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The same criteria applied to spin-bowling allrounder Ben Manenti who had all-format experience in NSW and Tasmania but no state contract, and whose appeal was heightened by his catching capabilities which Gillespie and his coaching team identified as a priority.
Statistical analysis of SA's Shield performance revealed their new-look bowling attack was creating chances at roughly the same rate as competition pacesetters Queensland, but their catching completion rate behind the wicket was around 30 per cent less.
Another addition for the 2022-23 season was Victorian quick Henry Thornton who had earned a reputation as a T20 wicket taker with Adelaide Strikers, and who SA successfully suggested would benefit from further learning his craft in one location.
Thornton had expressed a wish to develop into more than a T20 player, and the former Australia under-19s representative has since progressed to Shield ranks and was player of the match in SA's One-Day Cup final win last month.
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With Thornton contracted and left-arm quick Spencer Johnson also offered a new deal after seasons on the sidelines through injury, SA had completely turned over its pace bowling stocks within a couple of summers.
Mainstays of the attack over previous years, Joe Mennie, Daniel Worrall (both relocated to the UK) and Kane Richardson (Queensland), all moved on.
And while his first-class appearances were sporadic, home-grown leg spinner Lloyd Pope was quietly nurtured in the background by being selected in virtually every second XI fixture as well as sending down lengthy spells in Premier Cricket.
"We've come from here, there and everywhere as a squad but all bought into to wanting to do this for South Australia and bring the success that they've waited for so long," Doggett told cricket.com.au this week.
But the significant strides being made in the bowling group were not matched by increased productivity in the batting despite Hunt's breakout season in 2021-22 that earned him Sheffield Shield Player of the Year honours.
There was also the unexpected departure of opener Jake Weatherald prior to the 2023-24 summer when he sought a fresh environment with Tasmania, his loss underscored by the fact he finished the current regular season as Shield cricket's leading runs scorer.
As mitigation, unproven ball-striking phenomenon Jake Fraser-McGurk was signed for 2023-24 to raised eyebrows in some quarters, and was so successful he has since become an international commodity.
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Another Victorian Mackenzie Harvey, and NSW's ex-Australia under-19 skipper Jason Sangha were then added ahead of this summer to further bolster the still problematic batting.
Even though he was initially sounded out by Gillespie and Williams before the end of the previous domestic season, Sangha's arrival in Adelaide last year coincided with the end of Gillespie's coaching tenure which had followed soon after Nielsen's exit.
While Gillespie wouldn't publicly admit it, the successful push to lure former SA product turned Test hero and coach with Australia's pathways teams and Queensland, Ryan Harris, back to Adelaide as his assistant was largely an exercise in succession planning.
Harris admits the pair engaged in some "honest conversations" about what was and wasn't working during 2023-24, which featured a last-gasp Shield win over Queensland at the Gabba that sparked memorable on-field celebrations and fed genuine belief.
However, when the head coach's role became vacant earlier than either of them expected – and after he successfully applied for Gillespie's job last year - Harris inherited a playing list that had routinely promised, but too regularly failed to deliver.
So glaring had SA's Shield batting frailties become – they found themselves four wickets down for less than 50 runs five times last season, and four-for between 50 and 100 on a further nine occasions out of 20 innings – it became an off-season priority.
The issue was one of the first raised with SA batting coach Steve Stubbings – former coach of Derbyshire in the UK county competition – when Harris was formally appointed to Australian cricket's most thankless job last August.
"I sat down at the start of the season with the batting group and with Stubbo (Stubbings), and Stubbo is unreal with those guys and they love him, but he's very protective of them," Harris told cricket.com.au this week.
"I said 'we're going to talk about these batting collapses of four-for not many', and he said 'no we're not, because if you talk about it more it happens more'.
"And I said to him 'it's happening anyway mate'.
"It's when we're under pressure with the bat - and with the ball at times as well - but with the bat, that's when we weren't great.
"So I said we've got to talk about this and work out what we're going to do."
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"He (Stubbings) went away and came up with the idea that while they were training in the indoor nets pre-season we were going to distract them, and when he told me about it I was like 'really … we're really gonna do that?'.
"But he said 'yeah', it's the only way you can do it outside of cricket season' and I know it sounds odd, but we did it and it's brought some success."
Stubbings' solution was to blast regular distractions over a speaker system at the Adelaide Oval indoor nets while pre-season batting sessions were taking place, a combination of sirens, music, screaming and even bursts of fabricated flatulence.
While it scarcely makes muster for a scientific study, the anecdotal evidence – SA have found themselves four-for less than 100 in seven Shield innings this season which is half the number from 2023-24, and scored more runs than any other team – is compelling.
Harris cited the example of auxiliary batter Daniel Drew who is known as something of an obsessive with his technique, and always trained while wearing ear buds and listening to his own choice of music to steel his concentration.
When he was forced to bat against a backdrop of opera and classical tunes, Drew initially responded by pointedly asking 'what's this shit?' before being told by Stubbings to not worry about what was happening in the background but concentrate on what he was doing.
The ploy proved so successful that when Harris tried to communicate messages to Drew – who was part of SA's One Day Cup-winning team last month – during those sessions, he couldn't get a response because the batter was so immersed in his craft.
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"Just being in the moment, blocking out the distractions and we did that with a lot of the guys that were here during pre-season," Harris said.
There were other changes Harris brought, initially as interim coach (in the immediate aftermath of Gillespie's departure to Pakistan for a brief stint as Test team supremo), and from August when he was formally appointed to the SA job.
He and Stubbings undertook a joint leadership course to maximise their working partnership and ensure they and fellow coaches Mark Cosgrove and Steve Crook delivered honest and consistent messaging to the players.
The intensity of training was lifted, reflecting Harris's view formed during his days with the Australia and Queensland set-ups that every session had to serve the explicit purpose of improving performance.
And although the decision to appoint the impressive and highly regarded McSweeney as captain had been made prior to Harris taking the reins, he went further and pared back the team's six-man leadership group to the skipper and vice-captains Manenti and McAndrew.
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Harris's view was some of the younger members of the expanded leadership group, notably Scott who has enjoyed a break-out summer after years on the periphery despite his obvious talent, needed to narrow their focus to simply playing.
"I just wanted them to go and play," Harris said of his younger squad members.
"Focus on what you’re doing, focus on your own training, don't look sideways.
"If the guy in the next net isn't wearing the right training shirt or whatever it is, that's not up to you to address - that's up to me and the three big leaders to do that, not the younger kids."
In his interview for the top job, Harris also laid out his ambition was to win trophies for the success-starved state that could point to a single title in each of the three men's competitions – Shield in 1995-96, One Day Cup 2011-12 and BBL with Adelaide Strikers in 2017-18 – across almost 40 summers.
Where SA has been successful in recent years is producing Australia representatives with Travis Head, Alex Carey, McSweeney, Fraser-McGurk and Johnson all donning national colours while Hunt, Buckingham, McAndrew and Doggett have earned Australia A call-ups.
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But that wasn't going to be a priority for the new coach.
"The underlying point is we want to produce Australian players, but that's not my focus," Harris explained.
"My focus is to win trophies and from that Australian players will rise.
"A lot of states talk about their priority is producing Australian players but we hadn't won anything so that was my main focus.
"Let's win trophies, the rest takes care of itself."
But for the romantics who believe coaches are the keepers of "magic dust" (as Gillespie is want to call it) they sprinkle to transform competitors into champions, traces of it might be found in the centre of Adelaide Oval.
That's where Harris took his playing group one evening during pre-season training for his first formal address as full-time coach, and he delivered a talk that still resonates with players who from tomorrow will attempt to secure SA's first Shield final win.
Harris laughs that the centre-wicket location was chosen to amplify his message 'this is where we want to be for the season's last game', a goal rendered moot by the Australian Football League's refusal to allow the Shield final to be held at Adelaide Oval.
However, the central message remains timeless and might just prove the secret ingredient in lifting the long-time losers to their most successful men's summer on record.
"I just felt I had to really show them that I'm with them, it was a bit of a rev-up I guess," Harris said of that speech.
"I said some things about honesty, about backing them as players, and basically looked them in the eye and told them 'I'm going on the journey with you.'
"We're going to have ups, we're going to have downs but I'm going to be with you and so are the rest of the coaching staff.
"I just wanted that support, and that buy-in from everyone.
"Most blokes said they walked away wanting to run through a brick wall, and that's what I wanted."
'Wanting to run through a brick wall' was the wording opening batter Conor McInerney invoked six months later after his timely maiden first-class century against Queensland at Karen Rolton Oval a week before the Shield final.
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"It was a really inspiring speech, and I think it resonated with a lot of the guys," McInenerney said.
"Just the belief he (Harris) has in the group and the belief we have in him and his coaching."
Perhaps the most nuanced assessment came from Test keeper Carey who, given his earlier iteration as a professional footballer and his decade-long association with SA and Australia teams, has heard a few pep talks from coaches in his time.
Such is the 33-year-old's belief in what Harris has harnessed, he's made himself available for every possible SA appearance amid his daunting international commitments this summer in the hope of filling the one glaring hole in his cricket career achievements.
And Carey acknowledged Harris's pre-season speech was "really, really good".
"It was something a little bit different and it probably just showed us the passion that Ryno (Harris) has for winning titles," Carey said.
"For the group to have success, and to let us know he believed that we're good enough to have it.
"He's one of the lads as well, so I think he was just getting across how special it could be if we do the work.
"Dare to dream, so speak.
"To win titles is what you want to do, and don't be afraid of going after that.".
Sheffield Shield final 2024-25
March 26-30 (10.35am ACDT): South Australia v Queensland, Karen Rolton Oval, Adelaide
The Sheffield Shield final will be broadcast live on Foxtel, Kayo Sports, cricket.com.au and the CA Live app
Squads
South Australia: Nathan McSweeney (c), Jordan Buckingham, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Henry Hunt, Jake Lehmann, Ben Manenti, Nathan McAndrew, Conor McInerney, Harry Nielsen, Lloyd Pope, Jason Sangha, Liam Scott, Henry Thornton.
Queensland: Marnus Labuschagne (c), Jack Clayton, Lachlan Hearne, Usman Khawaja, Angus Lovell, Ben McDermott, Michael Neser, Jimmy Peirson, Matthew Renshaw, Mark Steketee, Tom Straker, Mitchell Swepson, Callum Vidler, Jack Wildermuth.
Sheffield Shield standings 2024-25
| Team | M | W | L | D | N/R | Ded. | Bat | Bowl | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
SA
|
10 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7.61 | 9 | 55.61 |
|
2
QLD
|
10 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 9.06 | 8.7 | 39.76 |
|
3
VIC
|
10 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5.19 | 9.3 | 39.49 |
|
4
NSW
|
10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6.99 | 8.4 | 36.39 |
|
5
TAS
|
10 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 7.72 | 8.2 | 35.92 |
|
6
WA
|
10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5.83 | 8.6 | 35.43 |
M: Matches played
W: Wins
L: Losses
D: Drawn
N/R: No results
Ded.: Deductions
Bat: Batting Bonus
Bowl: Bowling Bonus
PTS: Total points