Pace attack gives Vics the upper hand with bat and ball

Ashes hero Scott Boland inflicted the early damage, but it was a memorable maiden wicket for rookie swing bowler Fergus O'Neill that put Victoria firmly in charge of their Marsh Sheffield Shield match against South Australia.

In pursuit of Victoria's larger-than-expected total of 310, the Redbacks were knocked over for 230 half an hour before stumps on day two, with the visitors' opening pair adding a further six runs before bad light prematurely ended the day with seven overs to bowl.

SA's Test players Travis Head (76) and Alex Carey (70) were their team's familiar batting mainstays, but it was O'Neill's removal of Head that broke the crucial fifth-wicket stand between the two left-handers and exposed the home team's lengthy tail.

Head had begun his innings with circumspection befitting the circumstances, but having been gifted a life on 33 when Marcus Harris turfed a waist-high chance to his left off Matt Short's spin when stationed deep at mid-on, the SA captain gradually upped the ante.

He reached his 50 with a cracking swivel pull off Will Sutherland that slammed into the advertising boards on the ground's short side (around 55m), reaching his milestone off 94 balls as he prepares for the coming NRMA Insurance Test Series against West Indies and South Africa.

But operating around the wicket and using he prevailing south-westerly to shape the ball away from last summer's Ashes player of the series, O'Neill tempted Head into one expansive drive too many and Short clung on to the head-high catch stationed wide as Victoria's lone slip fielder.

"I thought the SACAs probably had us at that stage, so it was just a matter of us trying to chip away and chip away," O'Neill said at day's end when asked about his maiden first-class scalp.

"I probably got a bit lucky with Heady's wicket, but if you keep asking questions things can fall your way.

"It was a good day for us, it started well with Barrell (Boland) and Big Chief (Sutherland) and we're in a good position going into day three."

As his Victoria teammates mobbed the debutant in celebration, Head could scarcely believe his profligacy and stopped after a few steps of his walk back to the pavilion to throw back his head in disgust.

It was his first 50-plus first-class score since his century in the final Ashes Test at Hobart last summer, but he clearly believed he had squandered a chance to compile many more.

His reaction might also have betrayed a realisation his removal had also reduced SA's hopes of achieving first-innings parity, as shown when the final five wickets tumbled for 70.

Boland followed his unbeaten 24 in Victoria's innings – where the final four wickets contrastingly contributed more than half (173) the eventual total – with a typically immaculate opening spell that yielded 3-13 from eight overs that became 4-60 (off 20) by innings end.

That included the scalps of SA openers Jake Weatherald (0) and Henry Hunt (3) as well as number three Jake Carder (15), with the Redbacks folding to 4-73 when yesterday's century maker Sutherland (who snared 4-45 with the ball today) had Jake Lehmann caught behind.

Weatherald's dismissal, from the second ball of SA's innings, was especially remarkable given Boland swung it from outside the left-hander's leg stump sufficiently to find a leading edge that somehow flew chest-high to gully.

However, as SA's bowlers discovered yesterday having reduced Victoria to 5-92 before the tail-end fightback, the pitch at Rolton Oval offers assistance to bowlers when the ball is new but very little once it endures around 40 overs of wear and tear.

As such, the 87-run stand fashioned by Head and Carey either side of tea (and a couple of brief rain breaks on a squally Adelaide afternoon) loomed as pivotal in the battle for ascendancy.

Enter O'Neill, the 22-year-old who has held a rookie contract since last summer and whose only previous experience at interstate level was a Marsh One-Day Cup fixture against Western Australia last season in which he returned 0-23 from five overs.

The finely-built right-armer has been mentored by former Australia swing bowler Adam Dale at his Premier Cricket Club, Melbourne, and his dismissal of Head shortly after tea would have brought a smile to his teacher's face.

Head's dismissal left SA 5-160, which became 6-176 shortly after when Nathan McSweeney offered an extravagant leave to a ball from O'Neill that swung appreciably into the right-hander and clipped the top of his off stump.

It's doubtful that, even in his pomp, Dale could have produced more laser-like precision with the bending ball.

"When I first started at Melbourne, Dooma (Dale) was the coach and he's been great to me," O'Neill said of his teacher who played two Tests and 30 ODIs for Australia between 1997 and 2000 and finished with 245 first-class wickets from 59 matches.

"Maybe a bit of a similar bowler and someone I try and model myself on a little bit.

"I've done a lot of work with him and he's been crucial for my development and if I can go half as good as him I'd be very happy."

Dale has recently returned to live in Brisbane, but the pair remain in contact even though they've not crossed paths in around six months.

McSweeney's dismissal brought fast bowler Wes Agar – who in 20 previous Shield innings had not risen above number 10 in the SA batting order – in at eight, which starkly underscored the length of the Redbacks' tail.

The fact he dominated his 34-run stand with Carey, scoring 19 to his more accomplished partner's 15, briefly raised hometown hopes of a repeat of the rearguard effort that saved Victoria's innings a day earlier.

From 7-220 when O'Neill fell for 15 in his maiden first-class innings, Victoria's bowlers piled on 90 runs from just over 22 overs with Sutherland (100), Mitch Perry (18), Boland (24) and Jon Holland performing the most productive salvage mission their team has seen in more than a decade.

Fifty of those runs flowed from a last-wicket stand between Boland and Holland, of which 46 came off 10 overs this morning.

The last time they rallied from six down for less than 150 to crest 300 was a 2009-10 game against Western Australia at the MCG when now head of men's cricket David Hussey shepherded a tail that included Clint McKay (who finished with 55) and John Hastings (31).

Perhaps portentously, they ended up winning that game by an innings.

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