Allrounder Clark stars as Blues scrape through

New South Wales 288 and 8 for 135 (Clark 62, Thornely 47*, Tait 4-46) beat South Australia 154 and 267 (Cosgrove 94, Borgas 72, Clark 6-39) by 2 wickets
Scorecard

An outstanding all-round display by Stuart Clark allowed New South Wales to sneak home by two wickets in a thrilling Pura Cup match against South Australia at Adelaide. Clark's 6 for 39 first helped restrict the Redbacks to just 267 in their second innings, while his whirlwind 62 off 37 balls took the Blues home after they had stumbled to an unbelievable 5 for 12 chasing a target of 134.

New South Wales would have expected to canter home after their fine performance in the field, but they were in for a rude shock as four wickets went down in the first two overs. Shaun Tait, who picked up his second four-wicket haul of the match, started the slide by trapping Phil Jaques and Ed Cowan in front in his first over, while Jason Gillespie repeated the dose, dismissing Greg Mail and Brad Haddin off successive balls. All four batsmen made ducks, and when Tait nailed Beau Casson soon after, the Blues had lost half their side with a paltry 12 runs on the board. Dominic Thornely and Aaron O'Brien then added 34 for the sixth wicket before Tait struck again, dismissing O'Brien to have New South Wales reeling at 6 for 46.

Clark, with a first-class average of 13.45 and a highest of 35 before this game, then decided to make this match his own, crashing four sixes and three fours in an astonishing blitz that turned the game around. He finally fell to Cullen Bailey, who also dismissed Matthew Nicholson to leave the Redbacks within two wickets of a stunning win, but Thornely held his nerve and finally ended the match in style, smashing Tait for a six to seal the victory.

Clark had earlier starred with the ball too, as South Australia failed in their attempt to set a huge fourth-innings target. A mammoth 165-run third-wicket stand between Mark Cosgrove (94) and Cameron Borgas (72) had them well placed at 2 for 178, but the rest of the batting folded meekly, with only Callum Ferguson (39) providing some resistance. After dismissing both openers yesterday, Clark got rid of Ferguson and then took care of the tail to finish with a six-wicket haul. That should have ensured an easy win for the Blues, but in the end it required him to put forth his best first-class batting performance for the Blues to sneak through.