Maddinson sweeps away BBL cobwebs in Shield return

Victoria's Nic Maddinson could not buy a run in the KFC BBL this summer but you would not know it by how effortless he made batting look at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday.

Maddinson scored 95 on day one of Victoria's Marsh Sheffield Shield clash against his former team NSW, falling one shot short of his fifth first-class century for the Vics since moving south two summers ago.

And Maddinson was dismissed going for that one lusty blow to bring up three figures, running down the wicket to left-arm spinner Stephen O'Keefe but failed to connect and was stumped by Blues captain Peter Nevill.

Despite missing out on a 13th first-class hundred, his imperious red-ball form for Victoria continued. In 15 Shield innings for Victoria, Maddinson has accumulated 1106 runs in 15 innings, averaging 79 with a top score of 224.

Those figures are a complete contrast to his output for Melbourne Stars, where he has scored just 258 runs at 10.75 from 24 innings.

And just like he was in the 58th over on Friday, Maddinson is stumped when trying to explain the extreme disparity between his performances in Shield and BBL cricket.

"No idea," Maddinson told cricket.com.au after play. "It's just one of those things.

"With preparation, I think I've learnt to have a bit more of a mental routine.

"Playing a lot of four-day cricket I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp on how I want to play now and I'm confident.

"In Big Bash, you're playing every second or third day and when you lose confidence and get on a run it's really difficult to get it back.

"I was playing really well in the nets, I put in a lot of hard work in it just wasn't happening for me on the ground."

Maddinson's performance against the Blues comes with a hint of irony as he was let go from the Blues due to his poor Shield numbers over his eight seasons at NSW.

But on Friday he was very much the player that won three Test caps in 2016.

Most impressive was Maddinson's game plan against the major threat of Test off-spinner Nathan Lyon.

The left-hander launched Lyon for six in his first over and looked to attack in fear of letting the captor of 390-Test wickets settle and work his magic.

"I thought with the spin and bounce it was going to be really hard for me as a lefty so I wanted to be pretty aggressive when he was full so I could spread the field and get the fielders where I felt comfortable and where I wanted to score," Maddinson explained.

"If he got into a rhythm and I was defending him a lot then it was a matter of time before I was going to get out. 

"So I tried to not defend, either sweep or hit him down to mid-off or look to be aggressive on the leg-side if he got too straight.

"He's a world class bowler and I still felt like he could have got me out any ball."