It wasn't so long ago that Tasmania was reputed to possess the best fourth day batting side in the country. The Tigers have surrendered that hard-won reputation in the intervening period but today showed that they might be somewhere on the way back to reclaiming the title with a plucky display on the final day of the drawn Pura Cup match against New South Wales here in Sydney.

The pitch was ultimately the winner in this match, for it consistently played in favour of the batsmen. Yet the Blues still entered the last day with genuine claims on an outright victory and, as the action began, the Tasmanians still had a tremendous amount of work ahead of them to stave off that prospect. They quickly lost opener Dene Hills (28) to an edged drive at a wide Stuart MacGill (5/125) leg break to confirm that it would not resemble anything short of a struggle.

To the Blues' two other wrist spinners, Mark Higgs (1/26) and Michael Bevan (2/23), the visitors also watched Michael DiVenuto (0) and Shane Watson (14) make their exits before lunch. DiVenuto was dismissed inside the first hour of play when brilliantly caught and bowled high and hard to Higgs' right, and Watson fell on the stroke of lunch when he mysteriously chose to shoulder arms at a conventional Bevan leg break that pitched marginally outside the line of off stump and turned back in to him.

But another expression from Hills' opening partner, Jamie Cox (81), of his insatiable appetite for runs served the twin purpose of eating up time and slowly eradicating the deficit. Steadfast in defence and stylish in attack, Cox was on the verge of notching up the possibly unprecedented distinction of scoring a century in each of his four first-class innings against New South Wales for the summer when he was finally defeated.

He fell at the start of a disastrous half hour for the visitors shortly after lunch which looked to have all but killed the Tasmanians' hopes of staving off a loss. After he had feathered an attempted cover drive at Nathan Bracken (2/66), the experienced Shaun Young (8) pushed forward meekly at MacGill to offer a bat-pad catch and Daniel Marsh (13) was caught in spectacular reflex fashion at waist level by short leg fieldsman Brett van Deinsen.

Such an assessment failed, though, to take account of the steely resistance that was to follow. Two particularly stubborn partnerships - one of fifty runs for the seventh wicket between Scott Kremerskothen (64) and Sean Clingeleffer (7) and another of sixty-three for the last between the belligerent Shannon Tubb (42) and David Saker (20*) - reversed the trend and whisked the match away from the Blues' clutches.

A missed catch at mid off by Michael Clarke, as he attempted to hold a Kremerskothen off drive at MacGill when the Tasmanian all-rounder had only thirteen runs alongside his name, probably proved crucial in the final analysis.

Despite MacGill's unstinting efforts on the way to his five wicket haul, some tidy bowling from paceman Bracken and a pair of strikes from Bevan, it all left the home team ultimately needing a preposterous 146 runs off nine overs to win. For reasons best known to the Blues themselves, they actually decided to attempt it. But, once a lusty endeavour from Don Nash (2) to put the second ball of the innings into Sydney Harbour saw him lose his middle stump, there was little chance that such aspirations would be entertained much longer. Only thirteen runs were scored in total by the time that the pin was finally pulled.

After dominating for large periods of the match, the Blues can arguably consider themselves unlucky to have walked away with no more than their two first innings points. It was a particularly cruel result given that they urgently needed six points to put further pressure on second-placed Victoria on the Pura Cup table. With an advantage of four points and the luxury of a game in hand, the Bushrangers now appear to have close to a decisive break on the New South Welshmen.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd