Brilliant Bulls charge to ninth Sheffield Shield title

Queensland will go down as the most enduring team in one of the most challenging Sheffield Shield seasons ever after they sealed victory in the final at Allan Border Field on Sunday.

The Bulls celebrated with gusto after completing victory by an innings and 33 runs over New South Wales on the morning of the Marsh Sheffield Shield decider's fourth day.

Having bowled the Blues out for 143 on day one, the Bulls attack again skilfully exploited conditions as Mitchell Swepson (3-37) came into his own with three wickets on the final morning.

With the Queensland seamers doing the bulk of the work in the first innings, they were Swepson's first wickets of the game, capping a breakout season for the 27-year-old, who has comfortably proven himself to be the country's next best spinner behind Nathan Lyon.

Brendan Doggett had No.11 Josh Hazlewood edging behind to keeper Jimmy Peirson to seal the win before lunch, with Mitchell Starc finishing unbeaten on 27 off 125 balls.

Xavier Bartlett (3-42) had broken the game open the previous evening with three second-innings scalps of his own.

Marnus Labuschagne proved the difference between the two sides and was an unsurprising pick as the player of the final following his incredible first-innings 192, a knock that now stands out even more given no other player raised their bat for the entire match.

Bryce Street's 46 off a painstaking 203 balls was the next highest score on a pitch that proved highly challenging for the 21 batters not named Labuschagne.

"I felt like it was one of the better innings I've played,” Labuschagne said.

"I felt like I stayed a bit more patient than I have been usually. It was good to get the team in a good position and to finish off the win today."

It was Queensland's ninth Shield title and second in four seasons, with eight of the XI that featured in the Bulls' 2017-18 final triumph over Tasmania claiming their second crown in four years.

It is also Joe Burns' third title having also played in the 2011-12 victory, but it's a first for skipper Usman Khawaja, who was away on international duties for the Bulls win in '17-18.

"We've got an excellent dynamic (in the team)," Khawaja said.

"We love spending time with each other, so this is beautiful.

"It wasn't a very easy wicket on the first day, it was hard to drive, but you still have to execute, and our bowlers did it beautifully. They did exactly what I asked of them and it put plenty of pressure on the Blues boys.

"In a Shield final, you can't ask for much more in the first hour, the first session, the first day."

Their triumph comes following an unusual Shield campaign that begun with a 10-game 'bubble' in Adelaide in October-November and concludes with the latest ever finish to a domestic season.

The Blues resumed their innings on day four optimistic they could knock off the 106 runs they required to make the Bulls bat again, but it soon became clear the result was a formality.

Rookie keeper Baxter Holt (29) held firm against Swepson, reverse-sweeping and then sweeping him for consecutive boundaries, but the leggie got his man when Holt was lbw attempting another sweep.

Trent Copeland then followed having edged a pearler of a Swepson leg-break to Peirson before Khawaja took a smart one-handed grab at slip to account for Lyon.

The Bulls then gathered in a euphoric huddle after Doggett took the final wicket in front of another strong crowd of vocal Queenslanders.

Stand-in Blues skipper Kurtis Patterson, leading an undermanned batting lime-up that was without Steve Smith, David Warner, Moises Henriques and Peter Nevill, conceded the game was all but lost on the opening day.

"It was going to be a great learning curve with a young batting line-up, and we couldn't deliver the goods out there on day one and were probably behind the game and chasing our tails," he said.

"But having said that, the Bulls … have been the benchmark all year and fully deserve it. And Marnus, really well played, certainly the difference."

Queensland XI: Bryce Street, Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne, Usman Khawaja (c), Matthew Renshaw, Jimmy Peirson (wk), Jack Wildermuth, Michael Neser, Xavier Bartlett, Mitch Swepson, Brendan Doggett

NSW XI: Daniel Hughes, Matthew Gilkes, Kurtis Patterson (c), Jason Sangha, Jack Edwards, Sean Abbott, Baxter Holt (wk), Mitchell Starc, Trent Copeland, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood