The two heaviest scorers in the English County cricket championship go head to head when the Sheffield Shield match between Queensland and Tasmania starts in Hobart today.
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Queensland captain Stuart Law plundered 1833 first class runs for Essex and Tasmanian Jamie Cox scored 1617 for Somerset.
But they agreed yesterday that their big English season is history and it's all in front of them as the Shield and their personal Test prospects are concerned.
``That summer over there is long gone,'' Law said.
``Whatever is going to project Jamie or myself into the Australian team will start happening from now.''
Cox agreed, saying the English season seems a long time ago.
He said he didn't know where he was in the queue for a Test opening position.
``How long is a piece of string?'' he said. ``You never know how long that line is.
``It's almost a cliche, but all you can do is keep scoring runs. I've been doing that quite regularly for the last three or four years.''
With the Bellerive Oval pitch expected to be benign, Law and Cox should get another opportunity to amass runs.
The most pertinent question is whether either side can bowl out the other twice.
``The pitch looks pretty flat, not as quick as we'd probably like,'' Law said.
Both teams go into the match with a good start to the season behind them.
Queensland opened its Shield campaign with a six-pointer over NSW and then rolled Pakistan.
Tasmania, which usually starts sluggishly, easily won its first one-dayer and then took two Shield points in Perth.
Tasmania will be strengthened by the return of experienced opener Dene Hills, who missed the Perth match through injury.
Law said his prolific opener Matthew Hayden, who didn't travel south with the team on Wednesday because of a stomach virus, would arrive later yesterday and would definitely play.
The only uncertainty for the Queenslanders is how to deal with the rugby World Cup final in the early hours of Sunday morning.
They'll probably go to bed early and get up to watch. But they may sleep through and watch a video of the match in the morning.
``We'd love to watch it live and cheer Australia on, but we're here to play cricket,'' Law said.
``And whether we watch it live or not won't make any difference to Australia winning.''
TEAMS (both will announce the 12th man in the morning): TASMANIA: Jamie Cox (capt), Dene Hills, Mark Atkinson, Michael Di Venuto, Gerard Denton, Andrew Dykes, Scott Kremerskothen, Scott Mason, Daniel Marsh, Mark Ridgway, Damien Wright, Shaun Young.
QUEENSLAND: Stuart Law (capt), Jimmy Maher, Matthew Hayden, Martin Love, Andrew Symonds, Geoff Foley, Wade Seccombe, Andy Bichel, Adam Dale, Joe Dawes, Matthew Anderson, Clinton Perren.
