Western Australia may have fallen just short of a fourth straight Sheffield Shield final but that hasn’t stopped the plaudits coming in for two of their brightest stars.

WA endured a frustrating season with injuries, international call-ups and indifferent form rarely seeing the same XI play from one round to the next.

Yet they came within 34 runs of another shield final thanks largely to the performances of two men, batting-allrounder Hilton Cartwright and spinner Corey Rocchiccioli, who were both named in the Sheffield Shield team of the season.

Cartwright was the only WA batter to play every match of the season and was the anchor at No.4 finishing as the competition’s second-highest run scorer with 861 at 57.40.

For context, Cartwright was the only WA batter to average over 40 with Jayden Goodwin’s 520 runs at 32.50 the next best.

He reached a new career high with his mammoth 171no against New South Wales in the penultimate round keeping their shield season alive while he top-scored with 79 in WA’s unlikely chase of 382 in the final game.

Cartwright only failed to reach double figures in two of his 18 innings while he chipped in with five wickets with his medium pacers.

Offspinner Corey Rocchiccioli backed up his breakout season last year to finish as the Shield’s equal leading wicket-taker with 38 at 27.71.

The 27-year-old took a career-best 7/52 against Queensland while he took his second five-for in the final match with 5/67 against Victoria.

He was the only WA bowler to take multiple five-wicket hauls this season with his from seeing him in the conversation to join Australia’s tour to Sri Lanka with the only match he missed being when he was called into the Australia-A squad.

On tricky WACA pitches Rocchiccioli showed his versatility taking 10 wickets inside the first 20 overs, the second most for the competition.