Sayers silences his national naysayers

On the day Shaun Tait announced his retirement from cricket, Chadd Sayers, a fast bowler whose style bears zero resemblance to the man knows as ‘The Wild Thing’, closed in on the tearaway’s South Australian record for the most wickets in a Sheffield Shield season.

As Tait called time on a career that saw him represent Australia over 50 times across all formats, the uncapped Sayers collected the fifth-best figures in a Sheffield Shield final in gruelling conditions against Victoria in Alice Springs.

Quick Single: Vics end day two in dominant position

Sayers’ 7-84 took his season tally to 61 wickets, the most taken in a single season since Tait’s 65 scalps in the 2004-05 summer, a high watermark season for a speedster many said was the quickest they ever faced.

It’s an observation few Shield batsmen, who have collectively been dismissed by Sayers on 200 separate occasions after his first-innings effort at Traeger Park, would say about the 29-year-old.

While the tireless right-armer remains resolutely focused on helping the Redbacks claim their first Shield title in over two decades, he knows those hopes can only be boosted by him continuing to pick up scalps at his current rate.

And that he’s only four more victims away from drawing level with Tait, with one more innings to bowl in.

“We’re a lot different bowlers that’s for sure,” Sayers said when Tait was mentioned after day two of the Shield final with his side 1-19 at stumps, 468 runs behind the Bushrangers.

“It would be a great achievement to chase (Tait’s record) down.

“(But) we’re focused on winning a Shield final here.

“Hopefully I can take another four wickets in the second innings and put us in a good position.” 

Quick Single: Tait takes place among sultans of speed

While getting into such a position appears a long way off for the Redbacks, Sayers’ fifth haul of five wickets or more this summer now has him in sight of Colin Miller’s all-time Shield record tally of 67 wickets from the 1997-98 season.

A second-innings five-fer would see him record the best match-figures ever in a Shield final, with former Queensland quick Shane Jurgensen’s 11-172 in the 2001-02 decider the benchmark.

And considering teammate Joe Mennie vaulted into the Test side last November on the back of a 51-wicket Shield year in 2015-16, Sayers’ hopes of going one better than his three Test appearances as 12th man this summer and earning a Baggy Green appear bright.

Australia’s chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns, who has watched Victoria bat for most of the first two days of the competition-decider from the Bowden-McAdam grandstand, would likely have heard the reservations that surfaced when Sayers first burst onto the domestic scene with 48 wickets in 2012-13.

That he isn’t quick enough.

That he isn’t tall enough.

That he might not trouble the world’s best batsmen on flat pitches.

They’re doubts Sayers may well have put to bed in this Shield final.

South Australia’s opponents are the national yardstick for domestic success, with Victoria on track to claim the silverware of what’s often touted as the world’s premier domestic competition for a third successive season.

And for a second day running, Sayers posed the biggest threat to them on a lifeless Traeger Park pitch baking under heat drier than the banks of the nearby Todd River.

Six of his seven first-innings victims have played international cricket and the other - opener Marcus Harris - is Victoria’s leading Shield run-scorer this season.

Sayers’ efforts, both in this match and across the season, have reinforced two of his greatest strengths; stamina and durability.

The right-armer is one of only two specialist quicks (Tasmania’s Simon Milenko being the other) to have played in every game for his side this season, and his 419.2 overs are 68 more than the next most by a fast bowler.

If the 34.2 overs he sent down in the sweltering desert sun had taken its toll, Sayers wasn’t admitting it, insisting he’d pulled up well from the crushing workload.

And when asked if was tempted to acknowledge Hohns as he walked off the ground after he ended Victoria’s first-innings after 166.2 overs, Sayers showed his sense of humour was still intact despite a marathon summer.

“I might go chat to him after,” he joked.

Even though it’s a chat he would do well to prepare for.