New South Wales may have been lucky to escape further damage when bad light stopped play at 7pm in their Sheffield Shield clash against Tasmania in Hobart on Wednesday evening.
Struggling at 4-75 in the face of an excellent spell from Tasmanian pace bowlers James Faulkner (3-34) and Jackson Bird (1-32) when umpires offered them the light, the Blues have plenty of work to do to stay in the match after the Tigers wrested control of the contest during the first two sessions of play.
A century to George Bailey and solid contributions from Steve Cazzulino (87), Ed Cowan (47) and Mark Cosgrove (44) saw the Tigers take first innings points 30 minutes before tea, declaring four runs ahead at 7-345.
Bailey then turned to his bowlers in the hope of running through the NSW batting line-up to set up a run chase on the final day.
Faulkner was introduced to the attack to bowl the 10th over, a move that paid almost immediate dividends when he snared Usman Khawaja with his fifth delivery, the Test hopeful nicking through to Brady Jones behind the stumps for 14.
From 1-34, the Blues moved steadily to 58 before losing Phil Hughes (36) and Steve Smith (7) in consecutive overs to really take the ascendancy.
Hughes went first, caught low down by Luke Butterworth at second slip to cap a probing over from Bird and was followed back to the dressing room by Smith, caught on the crease by Faulkner to put a wobble in the NSW middle order.
With Simon Katich ineligible to bat above number seven after being unable to field during the Tasmanian innings due to a facial injury suffered while batting on Monday, Peter Nevill (six not out) joined Ben Rohrer (11) at the crease to face the music from a fired-up home attack.
Bird and Faulkner both had strong LBW shouts turned down as they probed for another wicket and it wasn’t long until the left-armed Faulkner beat Rohrer with a rearing short ball that kissed the batsman’s glove on the way through to Jones.
NSW captain Steven O’Keefe was unbeaten but yet to score when players left the field and will need to produce an innings of substance to lead his side from trouble on Thursday morning.
Although he didn’t chime in with any wickets, an eight over spell from Butterworth that yielded just eight runs to open the NSW innings helped the Tigers turn the screws as the Blues looked to build a defendable lead ahead of the last day.
Both sides need to take maximum points from the fixture to keep the pressure on Queensland and Western Australia at the top of the Sheffield Shield table, further compounding the Blues’ problems as they will need to chase quick runs on Thursday morning if they’re any chance of coming away with an unlikely outright win.