TIGERS HIT BY RAIN

NEW South Wales bowlers were deprived of a chance to drive home the Blues’ advantage in the Sheffield Shield match against Tasmania when rain ruined much of day two yesterday.

The Tigers were 1-79 in reply to NSW’s 8-449 declared, a deficit of 370 runs, when stumps were drawn early yesterday at the SCG.

Rain and bad light forced the players to come off the ground in the middle session that led to an early tea and no further play was possible.

With further showers predicted for today, the thirdplaced Blues face a race against time in pursuit of victory.

Experienced opener Alex Doolan (nine) was the only Tasmanian batsman to fall, getting a leading edge off seamer Gurinder Sandhu to Nick Larkin in gully.

Captain George Bailey (34 not out) and Beau Webster (31 not out) had put on 61 for the second wicket and looked relatively untroubled on a flat deck.

Earlier, Moises Henriques (131 not out) and Trent Copeland (41) put their foot down as NSW overcame the exits of captain Peter Nevill (five) and Steve O’Keefe (duck) in the first two overs of the morning to add 57 to their overnight total in just 11.5 overs.

Copeland belted six bound- aries and a big six before holing out to Ben McDermott in the deep off paceman Tom Rogers (4-88), at which point Nevill called an end to the Blues innings.

Rogers was easily the pick of the visitors’ bowlers.