Sheffield Shield table groaning with delicacies

The best red ball cricketers in the country find themselves free for the back half of the Sheffield Shield season.

Tim Paine has baited Marnus Labuschagne ahead of their Sheffield Shield clash

The Sheffield Shield, almost apologetically, walks back into the room, reasonably certain everybody else is finished doing whatever else they do and slightly embarrassed that it’s a little overdressed for this time of year.

The back half of the domestic season is sporting all the bling that would usually be adorning an international series elsewhere.

How’s the roll call of players for the four-day competition?

Tim Paine, Sean Abbott, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Will Pucovski, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mark Steketee, Mitchell Swepson, and David Warner are mostly available — or will be at some point — since the cancellation of the South African tour.

It is hard to remember a time when so many had time or the inclination to play state cricket for its own sake. They may turn out when national selection is on the line or an international tour is threatening, but there’s none of that on the horizon for this lot.

The fixture sets up some interesting clashes among teammates from the national side.

Paine, not having learned anything from his self-saucing exchange with R Ashwin in Sydney, has baited Labuschagne; suggesting the eccentric Australian batsman may be too distracted by the outcome of the IPL auction to have his mind on the job when Paine and the Tasmanians take on Labuschagne and the Queenslanders at Bellerive from Wednesday.

The Australian captain might be hearing more about that over the next four days.

NSW, last year’s Shield winners, take on Victoria at the SCG at the same time Tasmania are playing Queensland.

The absence of Test, BBL or IPL has allowed the humble Shield competition to eat at the main table and the Blues cannot find a plate big enough to avail themselves of all the delicacies at hand.

Their 13-man squad includes a decent catalogue of quicks to choose from in Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, Lyon, Abbott, Trent Copeland, Harry Conway and all rounder Henriques. Six of the eight were in the Australia squad for the Test series just passed.

Some serious talent is likely to miss out on selection.

NSW has also to accommodate Smith and Warner, although Warner is unavailable for the first match at the least.

The Blues found a place for Ollie Davies to make his debut in the one-day Marsh Cup match at North Sydney oval on Monday. His free-wheeling half century was a surprise to some but not to those who have been monitoring the 20-year-old’s progress.

Davies is one of those players who will have to join the queue to find a place in the first-class team, much like Warner did all those years back, but at least the Blues are able to manufacture a number of second XI fixtures to keep their rich list of young talent occupied.

NSW coach Phil Jaques admits it is a battle just to get the senior players into the XI and while Davies shapes up as a good player he will just have to wait his turn.

“He’s a super-talented cricketer and we’ve got a lot of talented guys in NSW, but that is the nature of being a NSW player,” he said.

“It is incredibly tough to make the team and the competition for spots is fierce, but once you make it you are ready to play at the next level and that’s the way it’s been in NSW.

“When we’ve been strong and the depth of talent is good here, Australian cricket is generally strong. We want to keep preparing and developing players for Australia.

“The young players are learning from being around the squad with these guys, it increases their learning capacity and their ability to play at a higher level, even though the short term opportunities may not be there in all formats we are still looking at ways to develop them.

“The senior players at NSW have a big job in developing them.”

Jaques, who had to wait some time behind Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer to get a chance at Test cricket, is sympathetic to the players desperate to get a start or those who miss out because the big names are home.

“There’s two ways to look at it,” he said. “It is great to have the guys back (from the Australian team) because they contribute so much when they are around. They set the standard and are obvious world class and its awesome to have them around.

“On the other hand we’ve got some really good guys missing out who did a good job in winning the Shield last year. It’s hard for them to miss games of cricket, but the way they have to look at it is we will try to give them as much cricket as we can and make sure they are ready to at the end of the year when they could potentially help us win another Shield.”