Jon Holland offers path to victory after cutting off Cameron Green

Cameron Green appeared set to deliver a strong riposte to Will Pucovski's second double century in as many Sheffield Shield innings for Victoria, before spinner Jon Holland intervened with a spell that demonstrated that assistance was in fact available from the pitch at Karen Rolton Oval, just not so much for the West Australian all-seam attack.

WA's captain Shaun Marsh, with his third century of the season, was left in the company of the nightwatchman Matthew Kelly after Holland's twin strike in the final session, finding appreciable turn alongside admirable economy in the sort of display he had been unable to deliver first up against South Australia at Glenelg.

Victoria's skipper Peter Handscomb had set the game up nicely with an enterprising declaration before lunch, showing that he had perhaps learned from a couple of recent failures to defeat South Australia outright on flat surfaces when his team had run up enormous first innings tallies that had nonetheless eaten into the time available to bowl the opposition out twice.

Handscomb fell short of his own century, having witnessed Pucovski make it as far as 202 before flicking a catch to midwicket, giving him a Shield average of 457 from his two innings so far - numbers of the sort the Australian team coach Justin Langer had demanded in order to force a change to a settled Test match batting line-up. He was the first batsman to make back-to-back double hundreds in the Shield since Dene Hills in 1997-98.

The short session before lunch proved highly fruitful for the Victorians, as Scott Boland delivered a beauty from around the wicket to find the edge of a pushing Sam Whiteman, which Handscomb snapped up expertly in the slips. On the stroke of the interval, Cameron Bancroft was pinned lbw in front of all three stumps by the young paceman Mitch Perry, despite his apparent annoyance at the decision.

Marsh and Green then accumulated soundly against the seamers, the latter commendably upright and straight as he has been in so many innings of his young career, and with their stand worth 141 inside the final hour, the Warriors looked set to be well established for day three.

However, Holland had dropped onto a tantalising length that prevented free scoring while also teasing the outside edge of the bat, and after several of his left-arm orthodox deliveries spun nicely away from Green, the 21-year-old was eventually beaten by the perfect ball, pitching in line with middle and leg before turning enough to sail to slip off the edge.

Hilton Cartwright, once considered a potential international allrounder in the manner Green is currently being feted, soon followed in more spectacular manner, playing back to a ball that popped and turned sharply, flying more or less straight up in the air off the shoulder of the bat for Handscomb to claim his third catch out of four.

These wickets will have made a mark as much by their manner as by the changes to the scoreboard, after WA had named an all-pace bowling unit in their XI and then granted Victoria first batting use of a surface now clearly friendly to spin.