Victoria captain Peter Handscomb has started his summer with a bang after notching a huge score of 281 not out against Western Australia at the Junction Oval.
In Victoria’s first home Sheffield Shield fixture for the season, Handscomb followed up the 132 he made against South Australia in the season-opener, sending a statement to Australian selectors.
His mammoth innings is now the highest individual score for a Victorian against Western Australia, while he also notched the highest First-Class score of his career which formerly sat at 215.
While Handscomb was the top-scorer, he wasn’t the only one to find himself in the runs as Cameron Bancroft (100), Marcus Harris (111) and Sam Harper (132 not out) also lifted the bat.
The Handscomb-Harper partnership of 338 sets the fifth-wicket record for Victoria in the Sheffield Shield, while it's the sixth-highest Victoria partnership in the competition's history.
With batsmen dominating, the venue again proved a graveyard for bowlers with WA notching 466 before the Victorians declared their first innings at 4/616 at lunch on Day 4 with the game destined to end in a draw.
Since the 2017/18 summer, the Junction Oval has been used for eight games with just one result coming in the last five matches.
Test hopefuls Jhye Richardson (21 and 0/76 from 30 overs) and Will Pucovski (37) failed to put their names up in lights ahead of Australia’s first red-ball game of the summer against the West Indies at Optus Stadium on November 30.