Choosing to bat on a green wicket backfired badly on Test hopeful and Victorian skipper Peter Handscomb as he and his side was humiliated in Brisbane and bowled out for their lowest Sheffield Shield score in more than 50 years.
Victoria lost eight first session wickets before being rolled just after lunch for just 63 as Bulls bowlers Mark Steketee and Michael Neser continued their dominant start to the summer to destroying the visitors at Allan Border Field.
Fresh off being picked in the Prime Minister’s XI as two of the “leading first-class performers” this season, the duo snared seven wickets in the opening session as the visitors crumbled from 2-0 to 8-47 at lunch.
Each bowler then took another scalp after lunch to dismiss Victoria in jus over 32 overs, to take their combined wickets to 41 this season, playing just their fourth game.
Neser finished with figures of 4-22 and has 19 for the season while Steketee, who took 6-38 against WA last week, snared 5-18 in the disastrous Victorian effort and has 22.
Only second-gamer Ashley Chandrasinghe, who made a century on debut against Tasmania, defied the onslaught for the Vics, facing 84 balls, but for just 16 runs before he was out and his 19-run stand with Scott Boland was the biggest for the visitors.
The minuscule total was the smallest since the Vics were all out for 73 against WA in 1971, and is the fourth-lowest total in more than 130 years of Shield competition.
But the embarrassing score didn’t make the top 20 for lowest ever competition scores, and was two runs more than the 61 Victoria dismissed Queensland for just five years ago, in 2017.
Given their chance to bat on the same pitch, the Bulls weren’t without their own troubles but passed Victoria’s total just three wickets down, and were 6-130 at stumps, a lead of 67 with Neser again doing the job, making an unbeaten 30.
The only concern for the home team, and potentially Australia, was the struggles of Test batter Marnus Labuschagne, who was out for nine to Scott Boland.
It was Labuschagne’s fourth single figure score in a row having started the season with 127 in the opening game.
Fellow Test star Usman Khawaja made 22 off 68 balls.
The day started horribly for the Victorians after Handscomb won the toss and decided to bat. Both Victorian openers, including Marcus Harris who was this week recalled to the Test squad to face the West Indies, fell for ducks.
Travis Dean, last year’s joint player of the year in the Shield, lasted just three balls and Harris seven, but neither scored and the Vics were 2-0 inside four overs.
That became 3-5 when Handscomb was out, then 4-12 when Nic Maddinson’s battles continued and he was removed for just four, then 5-13 when Sam Harper was also out for one.
While Handscomb and Harris are the competition’s top-two run scorers this season, Maddinson has just 56 runs in five innings, and is averaging only 11.
It only got worse for the Vics after his dismissal when Will Sutherland was caught for five and the visitors slumped to 6-22 inside the opening hour of play.
But while Chandrasinghe did his best to keep the Bulls at bay in partnerships with Mitch Perry and then Boland, even he succumbed on a dark day for the team.
The Vics did go past their three lowest ever Shield totals, scored more than a century ago, the only times they have ever failed to reach 50, but the meagre now total sits in their lowest five of all-time.
LOWEST EVER VICTORIAN SHEFFIELD SHIELD SCORES
31 v NSW Sydney 25 Jan 1907
35 v NSW Sydney 26 Jan 1927
43 v South Aust Melbourne 21 Feb 1896
63 v Queensland, Brisbane, 10 Nov 2022
73 v West Aust Melbourne 10 Dec 1971
76 v South Aust Melbourne 31 Dec 1900
76 V v Queensland Brisbane 7 Mar 1975