You wouldn’t want to be a Sheffield Shield bowler with the runs just piling up in Adelaide

Whiz kid Will Pucovski was not out again and Josh Inglis brought up his second century as the flat wickets in Adelaide continued to provide a run-scoring canvas.

It was a full day of bowling toil for Victorians like Will Sutherland. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

Standing out from the crowd in the Sheffield Shield is becoming hard, unless you’re Will Pucovski, with hundreds flowing and breaking bowlers the only concern for state and national selectors.

Pucovski was not out again at the end of day three of Victoria’s clash with Western Australia, as if to rub salt into the very raw wounds of incumbent Test opener Joe Burns who failed again for Queensland.

Surviving 24 overs late in the day with opening partner Marcus Harris, again defying a new ball on a slightly worn wicket, Victoria was 0-61 and Pucovski, not out on 32, showed no signs of his appetite for runs abating.

Pucovski, who has been on the field for all but 11 overs of Victoria’s two matches, has faced 799 balls and been out just once.

The 22-year-old batting dynamo has given Test selectors cause to work their way out of the corner they backed themselves into by declaring they liked the stability of the number one ranked national team.

Even Harris, who has a double-hundred and a half-century in his three bats, has made it almost impossible for Australian coach Justin Langer and his co-selectors Trevor Hohns and George Bailey to justifiably pick Burns.

But while Pucovski stood tall courtesy of the magnitude of his run scoring, the battering of nearly all the Shield bowlers continued unabated.

After his captain Shaun Marsh completed a third hundred, WA’s Josh Inglis scored his second 100 of the Shield season to take the tally to 29 from all teams.

Inglis, who plundered 125 from just 122 balls before being WA’s last man out, is the seventh player to have scored multiple hundreds in just four rounds of competition.

Will Sutherland gets the big wicket of Shaun Marsh, trapped in front for 135.

WA now 6/273.

Our 1st innings lead is 141.

Watch Live: @FoxCricket and https://t.co/ePL95q57ER #vicsdoitbetter pic.twitter.com/3P1qUFgGjL

— Victorian Cricket Team (@VicStateCricket) November 10, 2020

The West Australians were finally dismissed for 479, a 65-run lead, with 94 runs being added for the final two wickets. Victorian spinner Jon Holland fared best for his team, taking 4-113 off 42.1 overs.

But only the Victorian batters have really been rewarded for a hard two weeks in quarantine in Adelaide before their opening match, a quarantine period so hard one game was scrapped.

“It’s been a long five or six weeks away to play two games,” Pucovski said after his day two effort.

After a draw in game one, only a bold final-day declaration from Victoria could prevent the same result.