An unbeaten half-century from Test aspirant Phil Hughes has rammed home South Australia‘s advantage after they skittled Victoria for 118 in their Sheffield Shield clash at the MCG.

At stumps on Friday’s day one, the Redbacks were 3-163, already holding a 45-run lead.

Opener Hughes, who was in the Test side as recently as the first two Tests of the mid-year Ashes series, was at the crease on 77, with Callum Ferguson on nine.

Hughes, who already has a double-century to his name this Sheffield Shield season, batted impressively, hitting 10 boundaries, although he survived a confident LBW shout from spinner Jon Holland when on 30.

He and Tom Cooper (54) shared a 107-run third-wicket stand which carried the visitors to first innings points.

Hughes gave SA the lead and brought up his own half-century simultaneously by cutting former Redbacks allrounder Dan Christian to the backward point boundary twice in three balls.

Christian earlier top-scored for Victoria with 39 as his side was dismissed for their lowest Shield score against SA in 50 years.

Pacemen Kane Richardson (3-30) and Gary Putland (3-16), who was returning from a hamstring injury, did the bulk of the damage.

In Hobart, Ben Dunk and Tim Paine put on 143 for the fifth wicket to help Tasmania out of a hole on day one of their match against NSW at Bellerive.

Coming together at 4-118, the two keeper-batsmen steered the home side to 6-299 at stumps after skipper Paine won the toss and elected to bat.

Dunk hit 14 boundaries in his 89, while Paine cracked 10 fours and six in his 78.

Luke Butterworth will resume on 15 and Evan Gulbis seven.

For the Blues, Sean Abbott (2-56) and Gurinder Sandhu (2-66) bagged two wickets apiece, while a fired-up Doug Bollinger (1-72) bowled without luck.

And Mitch Marsh has saved Western Australia from a disastrous rain-affected opening day of their clash with Queensland at the WACA Ground.

He and Sam Whiteman came together when WA were in terrible trouble at 5-47, but they put on a partnership of more than 100 to leave the home side at 5-156 at stumps.

WA captain Adam Voges won the toss and elected to bat first, but then the rain started coming down, delaying play for more than three hours.

Bad light eventually stopped play on Friday evening.

Marsh remains not out on 69 and Whiteman has also batted well to remain 36 at stumps.

Ben Cutting has two wickets for Queensland with James Hopes, Luke Feldman and Michael Neser all picking up a wicket apiece.