Not its not. Premier Cricket (grade) is the nursery for state cricket. All our past greats came thru the grade system.

Josh Hazlewood and Patrick Cummins are progressing nicely with their match fitness in the FL encounter against the Warriors in Canberra. Hazey claimed 1-23 from 11 overs while Cummo finished with figures of 0-40 from his 11. I wanna see both continue with red ball cricket instead of this meaningless Saffer ODI series.

JLT Sheffield Shield Round 2 squads.
South Australia: Travis Head (c), Callum Ferguson, Jake Lehmann, Conor McInerney, Joe Mennie, Harry Nielsen (wk), Lloyd Pope, Kane Richardson, Chadd Sayers, Cameron Valente, Jake Weatherald, Nick Winter. In: Head. Out: Tom Cooper.

Queensland: Jimmy Peirson (c), Joe Burns, Brendan Doggett, Luke Feldman, Sam Heazlett, Charlie Hemphrey, Marnus Labuschagne, Michael Neser, Matthew Renshaw, Mark Steketee, Mitch Swepson, Jack Wildermuth. In: Doggett, Neser, Renshaw. Out: Max Bryant, Nathan McSweeney, Sam Truloff.

Victoria: Peter Handscomb (c), Fawad Ahmed, Scott Boland, Jackson Coleman, Travis Dean, Andrew Fekete, Seb Gotch, Marcus Harris, Matt Short, Chris Tremain, Eamonn Vines, Cameron White. In: Vines. Out: Will Pucovski (illness)

NSW: Peter Nevill (c), Harry Conway, Trent Copeland, Jack Edwards, Mickey Edwards, Daniel Fallins, Moises Henriques, Daniel Hughes, Nick Larkin, Kurtis Patterson, Daniel Sams, Jason Sangha.In: Conway, Fallins. Out: Abbott, SOK (calf).

Western Australia: Ashton Turner (c), Will Bosisto, Hilton Cartwright, Cameron Green, Josh Inglis, Matthew Kelly, Shaun Marsh, David Moody, Josh Philippe, Usman Qadir, Jhye Richardson, Marcus Stoinis, Jonathon Wells.In: S Marsh, Richardson. Out: Simon Mackin.

Tasmania: George Bailey (c), Gabe Bell, Jackson Bird, Alex Doolan, Jake Doran, Riley Meredith, Simon Milenko, Sam Rainbird, Tom Rogers, Jordan Silk, Matthew Wade, Charlie Wakim, Beau WebsterIn: Wakim.

McSweeney played in the last U19 WC and was Australia's best batsmen averaging 70. The selectors didn't do him any favours, in and out of side, up and down the order. It was him along with Uppal that supported Merlo to give Australia some sort of total in the final against India, after the early loss of Edwards, Bryant and Sangha (I think they were 3/50-60). He finished ranked No 9 in the last U19 WC, our next best was Edwards Ranked No 30, then Sangha at No 41, then Merlo at No 44. So you can say there was daylight between him and the rest, stupid selectors! I think he was also the only batsmen of that side to actually score a century in the Future's prior to the WC.

Stupid Qld selectors as well leaving him out and keeping Hemphrey who is looking out of form currently. McSweeney was the only one to show fight against Tasmania. Dumb move by Qld selectors.

Does he have a brother? Felt that was the name of person I have alluded to. 

Tell me about dumb selectors. How long did ours keep our best youth waiting to get a chance. Finally this year we see a youthful push. Daniel Fallins is the latest replacing the "nude man" SOK.. Fallins is a NPS scholar for crying out loud.
 McSweeney did look impressive the little I saw of him last week. He also pulled off a screamer of a catch..ala Steve Smith.
 Vics have rested Pucovski.. say he is suffering exhaustion. He does have a history of concussion evidently. Players of his promise need to be handled carefully. He could turn out our best since Smith came back to Test cricket.. even better.

Vics win toss and have sent the Blues in on a grassy MCG deck. Looks rather lively.

Anyone tell me why the Vics have dropped the  Bushrangers moniker?

Bulls batting on a straw colored AO.

Sayers beats the outside edge of Renshaw three balls on the trot. Renners says he has been working on this problem of playing and missing.

Renshaw castled by Mennie.

Another start by Larkin. @22 is nowhere near sufficient at this level. 

Labu puts Bulls in some early trouble with a shot he never needed to play. 

edit

That was inexperience by Heazlett.. should have padded away that ball. That was a wicket the Bulls did not want on the dot of lunch.

Joe Burns often looks a walking wicket early in his innings. But somehow he finds a way to overcome. Bulls need him to go on after oranges.

Have our cricketers forgotten the main principles of batting..application and determination? Too many of our so called specialist batsmen are in too much of a hurry. I blame an over supply of limited overs cricket at youth level for this. Prime example is Jack Edwards..a dodgy technique and he is almost scoring a run a ball. 

I also blame junior coaches who are lost in the modern cricket maze of T20 cricket and the 50 over game. If CA wants its much vaunted  Pathways Program to really pay off..it must introduce a red ball component at the age nationals sooner rather than later.
The Tele ran a similar article today about this very subject.

A rare greentop at the WACA.. well has a verdant tinge to it.

If Chris Tremain is not picked for the India squad.. that is a travesty of justice.

Warrior's opening quicks getting a lot of help from this WACA deck.

Patterson and Sams in need of a repair job on another Blues train wreck.

Five of the six teams are playing a leggie. Not often we see that. I like it.

A beauty to remove the Blues rock Patterson. Another Tremain 5fer.

Burns goes for 65.. he and Wildermuth repaired the Bulls damage.

Baggers you constantly bag Burns, but the facts are you don't have his record without ability. One thing about Burns is he will give 100% and if he is still in when the team requires a good innings because of an early collapse, he delivers just like today. 4th test SA out of the 117 we scored Burns delivered with 42 of them. That test the bowlers failed miserably, the batsmen failed yet Renshaw and Burns who were suffering jet lag coped blame. Everyone has a bad innings once in a while otherwise you would see averages around 80. In Burns case his off days have always coincided with poor Australian performances. I still maintain Burns should be in the Australian side, if not opening then at No 6 instead of M Marsh.

100 % agree, I said before this round young McSweeney provided one of the most determined innings 35 of 179 deliveries against Bird, Bell, Rainbird, Rogers and Milenko on a seaming deck, that I have seen in a long time. The result is he is dropped. And yet again Hemphrey failed, don't say I didn't predict it Baggers. I don't mind a "dodgy technique" if it gets results. I probably worry more about Patterson who gets a start but for some reason gets out. Weak mentally, very much like Maddinson.

Baggers I have to ask because I missed it. Did Sangha go for one of his Tendulkar like drives and get bowled between bat and pad?  It always make me laugh with the media hype around the potential of a player making them out to be better than what they are. It takes time to draw these sorts of comparisons. I have yet to see anything from Sangha that has impressed me. The century against England he scored was due to the fact that by the time he got in England had shut up shop on their bowlers and had spinners and part time bowlers were on and remained on because the draw was going to occur. So unlike you I think a slow introduction to NSW and batting No 6/7 is perfect for Sangha, give him time to prove himself before putting him up the order in a position that matters.

Just an update Baggers on Hazlewood and Cummins return. Hazlewood finished with 20 overs 1/42 (reminiscent of his prior match, no real improvement) Cummins 21 overs 1/72 (backwards from his previous game) This is the performance of 2 international bowlers playing two grades lower in the reserve grade team from each state. It looks like Hazlewood is back to his typical form of poor wicket returns, but the worrying sign is Cummins who seems to be off the boil. When part-timer Tom Engelbrecht finished with 5/80 I think both should remain in Futures for the time being and maybe Tom should be promoted to NSW. With Starcs poor performance in Pakistan trouble ahead for the Australian pace attack.

 Tremain got one to cut in late. That was what did Sangha .. not a poor technique. This kid will make you eat your words.
Patterson "weak mentally"?  Some 4/5 hrs batting 147 balls. I call that a full dose of application and determination .(two words I use to describe the best batsmen)  His knock saved the  Blues batting from complete humiliation. He deserved a red ink but Tremain did him with a ripper of an outswinger or was it an off cutter? Yes Patterson needs centuries.. but they will come. 

Looks like Copeland will have to shoulder the Blues attack again. We need wicket takers.

I wish they were playing more red ball cricket as both are clearly underdone and need more bowling to prepare for the Indians.. What they dont need CA is a handful of meaningless ODIs where bowlers are cannon fodder.