Harris the hero on tense opening day

A Marcus Harris century has given Victoria the upper hand at the end of an engrossing first day of the JLT Sheffield Shield Final, but the NSW Blues will rue the chances they gifted the home side.

NSW put down four catches in all, including two offered by Harris as the opener struck his third century of the summer.

But not all the luck was with the Victorians; NSW also benefited after the umpire missed a sizeable no-ball from Trent Copeland that saw Seb Gotch dismissed for just two.

At stumps, Victoria were 6-266 with James Pattinson unbeaten on 11 and Chris Tremain on 13.

With bonus points at play in this contest for the first time ever and to be used to determine a winner in the event of a drawn match, Victoria finished the day with 0.66 points to NSW's 0.6.

Bonus points are accrued in the first 100 overs of each team's first innings. The bowling side earns 0.10 points for each wicket in that period, while the batting side collects 0.01 points for every run above 200 scored before the end of the 100th over.

Harris was dismissed in the final session for 141, his third hundred of this season to go with the centuries he struck in Shield finals in 2015 (with Western Australia) and 2017 (for Victoria).

Already this season's leading run-scorer, his haul today took him to 1165 for the summer, the 15th highest aggregate in the competition's history and with another innings likely to come in this match.

His driving through the off-side was a feature of this knock today but it was far from one-way traffic as he was locked in tense battles with the NSW quicks, who got the Dukes ball to do plenty, particularly during the day's middle session.

Even before the two dropped catches, Harris had a lucky break early in the day when Copeland switched to around the wicket and got a delivery to hold up, forcing the left-hander to spoon one that went just over the outstretched hand of a leaping Jack Edwards – no mean feat given the 18-year-old stands about 190cm tall.

That chance didn't go to hand, unlike the one offered when Harris was 71; Sean Abbott pushed a delivery across the left-hander that took the outside edge, only for Nick Larkin to put down the diving effort in his position as a floating third slip.

Harris went to tea on 92 and rattled off a couple more of those powerful drives before he let out a roar of delight as he tucked away the single that took him to triple figures.

But when Edwards – brought into the attack to give the NSW’s frontline bowlers a rest – did manage to tuck Harris up and draw the edge when he was on 121, it was Copeland this time who put him down at first slip.

The two lives handed to Harris by the Blues were coupled with two more missed chances that bookended the day. Opener Travis Dean was put down by Kurtis Patterson in the gully on just nine, the Victorian captain going on to make 23 before he edged to Copeland in the slips to continue a lean season after last week's confidence boosting 61 against Tasmania.

And late in the day, Pattinson was put down by Peter Nevill after an edge from Copeland.

NSW had the better of the second session as they claimed three wickets between lunch and tea, with Copeland's dubious dismissal of Gotch sandwiched between his LBW dismissal of Will Pucovski for 17, Abbott's removal of Cameron White.

Pucovski was trapped plumb in front of middle stump with a ball that jagged in sharply, while White, recalled to the Victoria XI in place of the injured Nic Maddinson, had an uneasy stay on the crease that was ended by a superb catch from Daniel Hughes after the batsman spooned Abbott towards point.

Victoria XI: Travis Dean (c), Marcus Harris, Will Pucovski, Cameron White, Matt Short, Seb Gotch (wk), James Pattinson, Chris Tremain, Peter Siddle, Scott Boland, Jon Holland

NSW XI: Nick Larkin, Daniel Hughes, Kurtis Patterson, Moises Henriques, Jason Sangha, Jack Edwards, Peter Nevill (c/wk), Trent Copeland, Sean Abbott, Stephen O'Keefe, Harry Conway