Blues captain Simon Katich continued his incredible series with scores of 86 and 92 as well as the man- of the match award. He has also broken the record for the most runs in a Sheffield Shield/Pura Cup season, scoring 1506 runs with an incredible average of 94.12. He passed Michael Bevan’s previous record of 1,464 runs, which he scored for Tasmania in 2004-05. This total included a century against each state and national selectors now have to be seriously considering him for selection, especially after Australia’s poor batting performance in the one- day series over the summer. Former Australian captain Steve Waugh commented to Fox Sports about Katich after the victory. "He is too good to be playing just domestically. He is a class player and he gets runs in all situations, particularly when it's tough."
After taking first innings points scoring 281 and restricting Victoria to 216, NSW went on to score a massive declaring at 8/ 563 after Brett Lee was caught and bowled on 97, falling 3 runs short of his century. This left Victoria a target of 629 from 108 overs NSW had them all out for 370.
The NSW side was stacked with Australian players available for selection. NSW has used 25 different players over the summer due to the loss of these Australian players who included Phil Jaques, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Brett Lee, Nathan Braken, Stuart Clark and Stuart MacGill. Captain Simon Katich has also played twenty- three tests for Australia. This proves the incredible depth that NSW has to fall back on.
Stuart MacGill also staked his claim for the Australian team with a great return from injury producing figures of 2-36 and 2-118. This included an incredible bowl that beat Brad Hodge, proving he is still Australia’s best spin bowler.
Now NSW only needs to improve on their one- day form with their side incredibly finishing last this year in a series won by Tasmania over Victoria.
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