The technical tweak that has helped Harris' consistency

After he compiled a crucial 113no against Queensland in the Marsh Sheffield Shield, Vics opener Marcus Harris said he hopes a slight technical tweak and an upcoming County stint can help take his game to new levels of consistency.

Harris scored the 15th century of his first-class career at Allan Border Field in Brisbane, the left-hander capitalising on the form that has seen him make a start in all 10 of his Shield innings this season to dominate a strong Bulls attack on another rain-marred day.

The incumbent Test opener now sits inside the competition's top five run-scorers this summer, and was satisfied to have kicked on after a series of starts (24, 14, 29, 34, 15, 45no) since the restart. 

Most hundreds past five Marsh Sheffield Shield seasons

Marcus Harris 10

Moises Henriques 9

Travis Head 8

Cameron Bancroft 7

"I feel like I've been batting well the whole season, (but) I've probably had a patch there of four or five games where I haven't really got a big score, but I've been spending time in the middle," Harris said.

"I took some good confidence from last week in the second innings (45no against Tasmania), so it was good to go out and get a hundred today."

Harris only played one of Australia's four Tests during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, and as a largely non-playing member of the squad was forced to endure a significant chunk of the summer without any time at the crease.

When he was picked for the fourth Test at the Gabba in place of the injured Will Pucovski, the left-hander was out flicking the ball to square leg for five in the first innings – a symptom of what he describes as a slight technical hitch that was identified by Australia assistant coach Andrew McDonald and has since been remedied while working with Vics head coach Chris Rogers.

"The toughest thing was not having any cricket while we were in the hub but there's nothing you can do about that," Harris said. "We obviously had good training with the amount of blokes that we had … so we just had to make the most of every hit that we had.

"I've had a couple of little tweaks this year … I'd squared up a bit more, got a bit more side-on and then I found I was getting caught at square leg a bit – how I got out in the Test match and I got out like that a couple of times in the Shield games in Adelaide, so I just opened up my stance a bit (to bowlers) from over the wicket.

"I don't feel like it's too huge – it's just my feet a little bit, even during an innings I feel like I can mix around my feet a little bit and not get too mixed up."

Harris will for the first time take part in the UK County Championship through this Australian winter, with the 28-year-old hopeful his Leicestershire stint can play a role in finding that consistency he craves as he moves into what is the second decade of his first-class career, via a competition that helped Test teammate Marnus Labuschagne transform his game two years ago.

"Of that (first) 10 years, my first five or six were sort of in and out (of the side) a lot, building my way up … but pretty much since I've moved to Victoria (from WA in 2016-17) I feel like I've had that stable position in the team, and I think it's easier (then) to play with a bit more freedom, you're not looking over your shoulder as much," he said. 

"The next challenge for me is to do that at higher levels.

"It would've been good to go to South Africa (on Australia's Test tour) but now I've got the opportunity to go to England … I've got plenty of cricket to play so I'm looking forward to being able to do that throughout the winter.

"(County cricket) took Marnie's game to the next level and he's obviously gone to a different stratosphere now with his game, but I didn't want to have another winter where I just sat at home … I think to keep playing is beneficial to my game, and over in England in their conditions, it's just a great opportunity to be able to take up."