After Harris tonne, Queensland retaliated

Marcus Harris gave a quiet demonstration of his skills on the first day of Victoria’s Sheffield Shield match against Queensland at the MCG with his 24th first class century on a day when Australia’s openers in the Test match in Nagpur managed just two runs in total. However, the visitors recovered in the second half of the day’s games to leave Stumps with a 282/6 victory over Victoria.

After choosing to bowl, Queensland ended the early attritional running when Liam Guthrie caught Travis Dean. That brought Harris and Ashley Chandrasinghe together, and the two went on to put up a 119-run stand for the second wicket, with Harris being the more dominant partner. Harris scored a century off the 141st ball by driving Xavier Bartlett for four and hitting 12 fours and two sixes in the process.

But Matthew Kuhnemann made sure Harris didn’t say anything else by having Bartlett capture the centurion. Chandrasinghe was also defeated by Kuhnemann for 67 as Queensland re-entered the contest. As Victoria progressed from 200/2 to 282 for 6, Campbell Kellaway was out for a calm 41 before Mark Steketee added the wickets of Matthew Short and Mitchell Perry in the penultimate session.
Scores in brief: Victoria 282/6 (Marcus Harris 100, Ashley Chandrasinghe 67; Mark Steketee 2-55, Matthew Kuhnemann 2-55)