Sheffield Shield: Jordan Silk breaks down Tasmania’s struggles this season

Cricket is a game of moments, and the Tigers will reflect on the 2024-25 season as one of missed opportunities, where squandered chances ultimately brought their campaign to an early end. Here’s why.

The Tasmania Tigers will review the missed opportunities which ultimately cut their season a week short to miss out on the Sheffield Shield final.

One game captain Jordan Silk will look back on and think what could have been is the match against South Australia where the Redbacks won by just two runs at Bellerive Oval.

Despite missing out on the final by half a win, Silk said there was still plenty of positives to take out of the season.

“It’s bittersweet I guess you would say is the finish to our season,” Silk said.

“Pleasing to have played some really good cricket to round out the year, it is better to finish that way than to finish the alternative.

“Pleased with how the guys fronted up last week but in such a tight competition this year, small margins seem to be big margins and that is the reason why our season has been cut short.

South Australia players celebrate the two run vicotry over Tasmania at Bellerive Oval. (Photo by Steve Bell/Getty Images)

“You could highly many moments, many games where we just missed a trick and that’s the reason our season is done.

“Disappointing in a way to have not backed up all the great work we did last season, I still think there were some great strides made within the group.

“But ultimately we’ve fallen short of our goal of being in a Shield final and holding some silverware.”

Tasmania finished the season with a massive win against New South Wales, claiming victory by 326 runs in a day-night match at Bellerive.

But it wasn’t enough to make up for matches where the Tigers fell short throughout the start of the season.

“Less than half a game outside of the final,” Silk said.

“Just lacked consistency it felt like at times, when we could get a win, we couldn’t back that up the following week and string a couple of good games together.

“Which is ultimately what any team really needed to do in this tournament to get to a final was to string a few good weeks together it would have probably been enough to get there.

“Unfortunately we weren’t able to do that.

“There are some games I will probably reflect on, obvious one would be the South Australian home game but I look at the South Australian away game only a few weeks ago when we bowled them out for a hundred on day one and it felt like we really missed an opportunity with the bat on that day.

“The other one that will probably get highlighted more than the first innings at Adelaide Oval when we got knocked over quite cheaply and handed back early momentum that we had in that game.”

Tasmania opening bat Jake Weatherald finished with the most runs for the season in the Sheffield Shield. (Photo by Steve Bell/Getty Images)

A major highlight for the Tigers this season was opening bat Jake Weatherald who finished as the Shield’s leading run scorer with 906 runs at an average of 50.33.

“I think that is the biggest point, from where he came from, personally from some high hopes last season to have been watching from the sidelines from most of that year,” Silk said.

“Then to come in and have the impact he had this year, take away the runs at times throughout the year just from a leadership point of view he has really stepped up.

“I am super impressed not only with his skill but the way he has been able to fit back into our group after not being able to play too much last year.

“Such a loveable character and couldn’t be more pressed with how he went about it.

“Only have to look to the other night, that 60 not out, run a ball, not many players can do that, not many players can take away from teams like he can.

“We were really lucky we got to see him at his best, almost feels a bit of shame, his season deserves to be playing in another game next week.”

Originally published as Sheffield Shield: Jordan Silk breaks down Tasmania’s struggles this season