Victoria 272 and 246 (Harper 72, Rogers 59, Starc 6-81) beat New South Wales 136 & 241 (Philippe 88, Konstas 43, Elliott 4-44) by 141 runs
Victoria's seamers steamrolled a strong New South Wales line-up to claim a 141-run victory at the MCG but both sides were left in no doubt that Mitchell Starc is primed for a big Test summer after he claimed seven wickets in the match.
Victoria cruised to victory before lunch on the fourth day with Sam Elliott claiming the final four wickets they required including Josh Philippe for an excellent 88. Elliott finished with 4 for 44 while Fergus O'Neill was named player of the match for his figures of 4 for 29, 1 for 28 and two vital lower order contributions of 28 and 33.
Elliott broke a stubborn 63-run stand between Philippe and Starc when the wicketkeeper got a thin edge trying to thrash a cut behind point to fall 12 short of a deserved century. Philippe finished with scores of 45 not and 88 for the match. Starc fell for 18 top edging an attempted pull shot. Nathan Lyon also fell to the pull shot, miscuing to a catching man who was placed not far behind the square leg umpire. Elliott cleaned bowled Jackson Bird shortly after to finish the game.
While all eyes had been on the performances of two Test hopefuls in Marcus Harris and Sam Konstas, the buzz from both rooms post-match was how well Starc had bowled after taking 1 for 35 and 6 for 81 in 36.5 overs across the match, including Harris in both innings. NSW coach Greg Shipperd believes India will face a stiff challenge from Starc if conditions are similar to the pitch that was offered at the MCG.
"His pace, his rhythm, all of those things that go to engineering the sort of pace he was dealing with," Shipperd said. "He did change the game once he decided to go short and really change the dynamic of the match. And second innings again, we thought perhaps he'd done enough, but he kept coming. And so that's a good sign for Australia and troubles ahead, perhaps, on the right wicket for India."
Victoria coach Chris Rogers was thrilled with the contributions of his batting group in tough conditions, singling out the first innings partnership between Campbell Kellaway and Peter Handscomb and the second innings stand between Sam Harper and Tom Rogers as match-winning in the face of Starc's barrage.
"Against a very good bowling attack for a 21-year-old kid [Kellaway] to get 50, along with Pete, I said to Pete, that's right up there with some of the best batting I've seen him do," Rogers said. "To put on that 100, if you look back now, you probably say that that was pretty critical in us winning the game and having a first innings lead.
"And in the second innings, when they had us four for not many and Mitch Starc's got his tail up, we needed a couple of people to stand up, and two guys who were making names for themselves in Sammy Harper and Tommy Rogers played absolutely out of their skins, and that 130-run partnership, that was as good as I've seen from a partnership for a long time. Just absolutely fantastic."
