The best Sheffield Shield matches of the century: 15-11

Tasmania won by three wickets

The highest run chase in Tasmania's first-class history put an exclamation point on a remarkable turnaround against Queensland, just a couple of summers back.

Five years on from the Bulls chasing down 414 in Hobart, it was the hosts' turn to produce an extraordinary fourth innings, after they were skittled for 150 in reply to Queensland's 379 across the first half of the contest.

Joe Burns' 133 and Mark Steketee's 4-42 had been the leading acts for the visitors, who were in full control with a first-innings lead of 229. And when they made 6d-202 second time around, the ask for Tasmania was a daunting one: 432 in 124 overs.

The optimism for the home side was scant by the time they slumped to 4-158 before lunch on the final day.

A wicketless middle session though, in which Matthew Wade (105) and Beau Webster (70) added an even 100, left room for a twist in the tale; it meant Tasmania needed 168 from 37 overs with six wickets in hand.

But when Mitch Swepson had Wade lbw, Webster was bowled by Michael Neser and Mitch Owen exited for four to leave the score at 7-357, it appeared Tassie's brave effort would fall short.

That was to discount the skill and pluck of eighth-wicket pair Brad Hope (48no off 79) and Jarrod Freeman (47no off 50), who added 75 in 16.4 overs to see their side home with 10 balls to spare.

Freeman's winning shot – a sweetly-struck six over midwicket – summed up a stunning win for the Tigers.

"I've never heard him (Hope) scream like that at the end there," Freeman said. "He's pretty pumped. That's pretty special.

"I sort of thought if fielders are up straight, I'm going to try and get it (for six) and luckily enough I did. How good?"

First inns: Qld 379 (Burns 133, Clayton 96; Bell 3-65)

Second inns: Tas 150 (Webster 59; Steketee 4-42, Sandhu 3-29)

Third inns: Qld 6d-202 (Renshaw 57, Burns 55; Hope 3-25)

Fourth inns: Tas 7-432 (Wade 105, Webster 70; Neser 2-76)

Match drawn

David Hussey capitalised on some solid top-order groundwork to knock up an aggressive hundred as the Vics piled on 4-340 on the opening day of this riveting clash at the 'G. And after the hosts declared on day two at 7-498, the unbeaten Bulls' response was an unconvincing one, as Vics skipper Cameron White wound back the clock to take 5-59 and hand his side a 203-run lead.

With time of the essence, Aaron Finch (82 off 92) and Hussey (76 off 78) pushed the accelerator on day three, motoring along at more than five an over to set the Queenslanders a target of 400 – what would have then been the seventh-highest chase in Shield history.

And for much of the final day, the Bulls – who resumed at 1-35 – looked well placed, as first Joe Burns (123) and then a dashing 115 (132) left them 5-385 late in the day – just 15 runs from victory with 27 balls still remaining.

But paceman Jayde Herrick's dismissal of the well-set Chris Hartley (39) triggered a collapse of 3-8 in 17 balls, with the off-spinning Glenn Maxwell taking the other two wickets to fall, including the crucial one of Forrest – caught at deep midwicket – when just seven runs were needed from 10 balls.

With seven balls remaining, new batter Ben Cutting – who had been named 12th in the first Test in Brisbane only days earlier – was dropped by Clint McKay at long off, and then from the penultimate ball of the match and with the Bulls needing two runs, No.10 Matthew Gale was knocked over by Herrick.

"When Luke Feldman came out, he said, 'We have to run two, no matter what'," remembered Cutting, who also had Vics captain White in his ear.

"And 'Whitey' was telling me I should definitely run two as well – but I wasn't going to believe a Victorian (laughs)'."

Feldman got bat on ball and the Queensland pair duly ran the first, but declined a second – despite the fact a run-out with the scores level would have earned both sides three points. As it stood, Victoria got two points on first innings, and the Bulls went home with nothing. 

"They're giving fast bowlers a bad name, aren't they? We've discussed that already (in the changerooms)," Queensland coach Darren Lehmann said. "They should know the rules. But having said that, we lost 4-13 and we should have got those runs in the end. It was a great game of cricket."

At season's end, with just two points separating the top four teams in an extraordinary race to the final, it became evident that one extra point for Victoria would have been enough to win them hosting rights. As it was, they missed out on the final altogether. Queensland, meanwhile, won the Shield.

First inns: Vic 7d-498 (Hussey 130, Quiney 87; Reardon 2-99)

Second inns: Qld 295 (Hartley 62, Burns 59; White 5-59)

Third inns: Vic 3d-196 (Finch 82, Hussey 76no; Broad 1-7)

Fourth inns: Qld 9-399 (Burns 123, Forrest 115; Herrick 3-105)

Queensland won by four wickets

Even Ricky Ponting's double hundred was outshone in this wild Shield encounter at Allan Border Field, where a flat track and some swashbuckling innings made for an instant classic.

Against the likes of Andy Bichel, Adam Dale and fourth-gamer Ashley Noffke, 25-year-old Ponting lit up the opening day with an unbeaten 207 as Tasmania flew to 5-356 at stumps.

Queensland fought back with the ball the next morning to bowl the visitors out for 403 but despite solid contributions across the board, no-one managed a half-century in their response of 289, which left them trailing by 114 and struggling to stay in the contest.

Second time around, Tassie were again led by Ponting (61) but the Jamie Cox-led side meandered their way to 5-177 at stumps on day three, perhaps content with first-innings points against the defending Shield champions.

The Tigers added 81 to their total on the final morning in another 22 overs to virtually bat Queensland out of the contest: the hosts needed 373 in 72 overs.

And when Stuart Law was out for a three-ball duck, the Bulls were 3-59 in the 20th over, with only one side seemingly able to win the match.

Across the next two-and-a-half hours though, the small crowd present witnessed a partnership for the ages, as Martin Love (165no from 191) and Andrew Symonds (133 from 122) took control.

The pair rattled along at better than six an over, hitting a couple of sixes apiece and in one stretch moving from 200 to 300 in just 8.3 overs. In all they added 261 in 42.2 overs to put Queensland on the brink of a famous win, but a late mini-collapse of 3-9 saw the contest swing again.

At 6-329 and needing 44 from 49 balls, Love and 'keeper Wade Seccombe (31no off 25) iced the chase in style, getting their side home with an over to spare.

For a Queensland side high on belief, it was a win that typified an era in which they claimed the state's first threepeat. 

First inns: Tas 403 (Ponting 233, Marsh 61; Bichel 5-126)

Second inns: Qld 289 (Symonds 49, Bichel 48; Marsh 3-50, Wright 3-61)

Third inns: Tas 7d-258 (Ponting 61, Marsh 58no; Bichel 4-105)

Fourth inns: Qld 6-373 (Love 161no, Symonds 133; Marsh 2-72)

South Australia won by two runs

Jason Sangha's first hundred for South Australia, scored amid in a 300-run stand with Henry Hunt (136), set the tone for this one, with Tasmania on the back foot almost from the outset after skipper Jordan Silk asked the visitors to bat first in Hobart.

SA's four-strong pace attack then combined nicely to dismiss the Tigers for 203, and when Conor McInerney blasted a quick-fire 75 from 73 balls, skipper Ben Manenti was able to declare for the second time in the match – this time with a lead of 428, with nine overs still to be bowled on day three.

At stumps, the home side were 1-41, and they advanced to 2-229 midway through the final day off the back of Tim Ward's excellent hundred – at which point they lost two quick wickets. But Ward (142) held firm, putting on 98 for the fifth wicket with Brad Hope (69) to take the score to 4-328 before the opening bat finally fell.

By then, the prospect of a Tasmania win looked bleak; with five wickets in hand, they still required 101 to win, and only 14.2 overs remained. Hope though was joined by the big-hitting Mitch Owen, who seemed focused on only one thing – victory.

The right-hander proceeded to clobber 53 from just 39 balls – adding 72 in 10 overs with Hope – and took his side to within seven runs of their target, before falling to Nathan McAndrew with just eight balls left in the match. By then Hope too had departed, and it was left to the Tassie tail to cobble together the remaining runs.

Which spelled trouble. When Matt Kuhnemann and Gabe Bell each departed for ducks in the space of five balls, the home side had lost 3-1 with a remarkable win in sight.

Out walked No.11 Riley Meredith to join Lawrence Neil-Smith. Three balls remained, and Wes Agar had the ball at the top of his mark.

The pair managed two singles to leave four required from the final ball, with Meredith on strike.

"He backed away and showed me all the stumps," Agar said afterward. "I nailed my yorker, and he's just jammed it out."

The ball went out to deep cover for no more than a single, and the match appeared drawn until Meredith inexplicably turned for a second, stranding himself mid-pitch as Manenti's soft return came into the non-striker's end.

"It's the pressure, it can play tricks on you," Agar added. "Potentially, Meredith could have been seeing it as they needed three, (and) if they came back for a second and there's a fumble they could get another."

As the bowler joyously swiped the bails, South Australia had completed a two-run victory from the final ball of the match – the closest winning margin in the history of the Shield.

First inns: SA 6d-398 (Sangha 151, Hunt 136; Meredith 4-95)

Second inns: Tas 203 (Doran 51; Scott 3-30, Thornton 3-41)

Third inns: WA 9d-233 (McInerney 75, Sangha 61; Kuhnemann 4-67)

Fourth inns: Tas 426 (Ward 142, Hope 69; Agar 3-91)

Tasmania won by six runs

Playing his fifth first-class match, 21-year-old 'keeper-opener Tim Paine hit a marathon 215 across more than nine hours on a friendly WACA Ground surface to announce himself to Australian cricket.

After WA captain Justin Langer sent Tasmania in under overcast skies, Paine was backed up principally by an aggressive Michael Bevan (83 from 87) as the visitors made the most of some dropped catches to rack up 7d-553.

One of those drops had come from Langer, who spilled the young gloveman on 199, but if the veteran West Australian had made a couple of errors in the early stages of this contest, he quickly set about righting his wrongs.

By tea on day three, he had moved to 188no, and with Luke Ronchi having carted 47no from 29 balls, the skipper promptly declared at 5-353 – having reportedly received an assurance from his rival skipper Dan Marsh during the interval that he would respond in kind.

Early-season ladder leaders Tasmania then set about scoring at a rapid rate, Paine (56 off 77) again leading the charge and Bevan (46 off 40) completing a fine match double at a strike-rate exceeding 100. The away team's innings continued barely an hour into day four before Marsh proved true to his word, calling in his troops at 7-200 and leaving WA needing an improbable 401 in 81 overs.

At 3-43 and against a four-pronged pace attack led by Ben Hilfenhaus (5-79), they could have been forgiven for shutting up shop. But Marcus North and Adam Voges had other ideas. The classy left-right combination showed why they were Test players in waiting, adding 174 at better than four an over across the afternoon.

When North fell for a superb 107 from 135, Chris Rogers (46 off 59) then added 100 with Voges in just 19 overs, before Ronchi's run-a-ball 14 left the home side needing 55 from 52 balls with four wickets in hand.

As the match reached its climax, both Voges and the Tassie pace attack refused to wilt. And so it came down to the final over, with the score reading 9-393. Voges faced two dot balls from Brett Geeves before striking the third down toward long-on, where Michael Di Venuto raced in to collect the ball and brilliantly threw down the stumps, catching No.11 Ben Edmondson short of his ground and sealing a heart-stopping six-run win for his side.  

"As I stand here, right this minute, I could easily say, 'I'm glad we went for it', but I'm not actually," Langer said. "Tassie have got 12 points now, and we've got two."

First inns: Tas 7d-553 (Paine 215, Bevan 83; Heal 5-103)

Second inns: WA 5d-353 (Langer 188, Marsh 50; Geeves 2-82)

Third inns: Tas 7d-200 (Paine 56; Heal 5-57)

Fourth inns: WA 394 (Voges 152no, North 107; Hilfenhaus 5-79)