Young stars combine as Vics romp to first Shield win

Two rising stars of Australian cricket in Todd Murphy and Will Sutherland have sparked a sensational NSW collapse to bowl Victoria to a final-day come-from-behind Marsh Sheffield Shield victory.

Fresh off a standout performance for the Prime Minister's XI against the West Indies last week, Murphy returned to the Victorian side against his native state to combine with Sutherland in dramatic effect.

His three wickets in the first innings, along with Will Sutherland's four, helped keep NSW to a modest first innings lead of 51 runs on day two after the hosts were bowled out for 209 a day earlier.

Resuming the final day on Sunday with victory in sight needing 175 runs with nine wickets still in hand, a disastrous first session had NSW facing the prospect of being all out by lunch.

Jason Sangha (19) only added three to his overnight score before being trapped in front by Sutherland, whose stocks as an allrounder of the future continue to climb owning to an impressive season with both bat and ball.

After taking the opening wicket of NSW skipper Kurtis Patterson the night before, Murphy struck in his third over of the day as Daniel Hughes (33) shouldered arms to a delivery that skidded straight on and clattered into his off stump.

It's becoming a common method of dismissal for the 22-year-old right-armer, who had Windies allrounder Kyle Mayers out leg before not offering a shot during the PM's XI match and Tasmanian opener Tim Ward out in similar fashion to Hughes last season.

Murphy then deceived Matthew Gilkes (5) trying to lift him down the ground for a boundary, with Nic Maddinson taking a superb catch running back with the flight to rapturous applause of the Victorian faithful at the Junction Oval.

He then had four of the first five NSW wickets to fall when Moises Henriques (10), who rescued the visitors with 97 in their first innings, edged the ball onto his pad into the waiting hands of Travis Dean at short leg.

It's been a remarkable rise for Murphy, who after just seven first-class matches is now being touted as by some as Nathan Lyon's replacement should he suffer an injury during the summer.

The Moama-raised tweaker's 4-42 on Sunday was the best return of his short first-class career to date, taking his tally to 29 wickets at 25.20, with his inclusion in the Australia A squad for their tour of Sri Lanka in June and the PM's XI indicating he is certainly on the national selectors radar.

Despite bowling extremely well, a masterstroke by Handscomb saw Sutherland switch ends to replace Murphy, taking three wickets in quick succession as NSW lost seven wickets in the opening session to crash to 8-134 at lunch.

Player-of-the-match Sutherland (5-58) and Covid sub Ruwantha Kellapotha (1-21) completed the formalities after the break as Victoria romped to a 69-run win – their first of the Shield season – with more than half a day to spare.

It completed a remarkable turnaround for the home side who used 14 players in the match, with Sam Harper, Jon Holland (both Covid) and Sam Elliott (concussion) subbed out, and they looked set to concede a hefty first innings deficit with NSW trailing by 54 runs with eight wickets still remaining on the second day.

But the Vics' young brigade again got their side back into the contest; first through Sutherland and Murphy who combined for seven wickets in the first innings and then through Campbell Kellaway with a gritty 81 when they slumped to 6-131 in their second dig.

Sutherland and Murphy finished with 15 of the 20 NSW wickets for the match, and the pair bowled 41 of 59 overs in NSW second innings, delighting skipper Handscomb with their efforts.

"What we just saw from Sutho (Sutherland), it's what he does, it's what we've come to expect from him," Handscomb said after the match.

"But the fact that he keeps doing it day in, day out is so impressive and he's just getting better with each knock with the bat and with the ball.

"He's really starting to step up and take that leadership role, especially now with Scott Boland away for probably the rest of the season.

"Between Sutho and Murph there's that fight and that want to bowl as well and they're two young leaders in this group so that's great to see."

It means another week of soul-searching for bottom of the table NSW who are still winless in the Shield this season and parted ways with head coach Phil Jaques prior to this match.

"It was quite an emotional day when Phil shared the news of what had happened and took a few guys by surprise," Patterson said.

"But once we got into training mode the day before travelling down here … everyone felt like they were in a good enough place to play … so it was a disappointing way to end the game, but I think that lead up certainly doesn't play a role.

"Today just called for you to do the fundamentals of batting for long periods of time, defend well and play straight … and we weren't good enough to do them for long enough."

The Sheffield Shield now goes into a two-month hiatus for the KFC BBL before resuming in February.