Sheffield Shield: Cameron Bancroft finally finds runs against South Australia

Cam Bancroft has finally arrested a run of poor form and has made his first half century of the summer in Western Australia’s Sheffield Shield clash with South Australia. The opener, who was beaten to Test selection by Nathan McSweeney because of a nightmare start to the season where his previous best score was 16, turned things around at Adelaide Oval on Monday. He was 72 not out at stumps on the third day of the match and WA lead by 305. They would likely need to launch an aggressive declaration to have any chance of engineering a result on Tuesday’s final day. Bancroft had already made five ducks in first-class cricket this season - and in his 10 shield innings he has made just 52 runs at an average of 5.2 - including one each in two crucial auditions for Australia A. And Jayden Goodwin’s impressive run of form is getting even better. The young left-hander has also passed 50 in the night session after making a career-best 139 in the first innings. South Australia scraped their way to 253 after Joel Paris and Jhye Richardson made a mess of their top order. Paris took 5-34 and Richardson claimed 3-47. Henry Hunt made 106 to graft through the middle of the innings and Ben Manenti continued his habit of hurting WA with the bat, finding his way to an unbeaten 73 off just 86 balls. WA opener Sam Fanning was caught behind off the bowling of Spencer Johnson, the same way Bancroft’s golden duck was brought about in the first innings, with just the second ball.