It entered the concluding match of the summer needing to win and, therefore, needing a good start

John Polack23-Mar-2001It entered the concluding match of the summer needing to win and, therefore, needing a good start. Alas, some brilliant pace bowling from Ashley Noffke and AndyBichel ensured that Victoria’s performance didn’t fit the specifications at all. Accordingly, the Bushrangers are now in dire need of a strong and sustained recoveryfollowing a disastrous start to the Pura Cup Final against Queensland here at the ‘Gabba ground in Brisbane today.The appearance of these two sides in the deciding match of the Australian first-class season represented a return to events of last summer. But, on the opening day,there were few similarities to be detected between the two games. Where Queensland won the toss and batted with consistent application – across town at the AllanBorder Field – last time around, Victoria called the fall of the coin correctly today but then foundered in the face of accurate, intelligent fast bowling.While still young and raw, Noffke (5/41) already exhibits a wonderful sense of occasion. The strapping twenty-three year old was the star of a stunning Queenslandwin in the very first match of this Australian domestic season; today, he made a major impact in its very last.Having been frustrated to that point by what ultimately proved to be the only resolute stand of the innings – one of seventy-three runs for the third wicket betweenJason Arnberger (63) and Brad Hodge (47) – the Queenslanders required inspiration when Noffke took up the attack after lunch from the Stanley Street End. In theright arm fast bowler from the Sunshine Coast, they more than found it. He produced a spell high on quality and high on pace, the batsmen reduced to a plight ofevading well-aimed lifting deliveries and of stabbing and driving in discomforted style outside the line of off stump at those of fuller length.The combination of a debilitating injury to his heel and the ever-intense battle for pace bowling spots in the Queensland eleven have robbed Noffke of manyopportunities this summer. Even the decision to include him in this side, ahead of off spinner Scott O’Leary, was only made shortly before the game. But here was achance upon which he gleefully seized.”I was pretty ecstatic (just) to be picked,” conceded Noffke after play.”It means a hell of a lot,” he added of his achievement in capturing his first ever five-wicket haul at first-class level in a Final. “You don’t even dream about days likethis; it has just been a great day.””The selectors and ‘Stu’ (captain Stuart Law) have put a lot of faith in me and I’m happy to reward them with something. Halfway through the season – with the heelinjury – I’d obviously been set back a long way. But I’ve reassessed my goals and I’ve gone from there.”In the midst of an unerring spell of eleven overs upon the resumption after the lunch break, Noffke decimated the Victorian middle order by snaring 3/0 in the space ofseventeen deliveries. The crucial scalp among these was the first; Hodge making one of the few mistakes of an otherwise excellent innings when he unleashed a pull ata delivery which cramped him marginally for room, stayed a touch lower than he expected, and induced a catch from the bottom edge of his bat for wicketkeeperWade Seccombe.Earlier, Matthew Elliott (3) and Matthew Mott (4) had fallen to Bichel (3/42) in a disastrous opening forty minutes to the match for the visitors; now Noffke’sbreakthrough exposed an even more brittle middle and lower order.Michael Klinger (0) unfurled a loose drive without much movement of the feet; Jonathan Moss (0) deflected a delivery of searing pace back into his stumps; and thenDarren Berry (2) edged a catch to second slip. The Bushrangers were six wickets down by tea and looking a shadow of the side that has often responded well underpressure this summer. Their imitation was much more of the string of Victorian teams that, between them, have produced just one first-class victory in Brisbane in thepast thirty-six years. Against the seaming ball, it was all coming apart at the seams for them.Arnberger conceived an heroic show of application at the other end. He defended stoutly, ran smartly between the wickets, and punished – across an outfield slowedsignificantly by recent rain – the few bad balls that came along. But, in sunny conditions and on a pitch that offered no more than modest assistance to the bowlers, hereceived very little in the way of support.Some ground was recovered late in the piece when Elliott took a brilliant low catch to his right at second slip to remove Jerry Cassell (9). And Jimmy Maher (22*)didn’t have it all his own way either, surviving one periously close lbw appeal when his score was on just two. But this unmistakably remained Queensland’s day.At a score of 1/37 in its reply to the visitors’ meagre 176, the reigning titleholders palpably hold the whip hand after the match’s opening six hours. As urgentrecoveries go, there is no need so great as Victoria’s.