Victorian spinner Jon Holland has picked up where he left off at the end of the last Sheffield Shield season, to give Victoria a strong chance of outright victory against NSW in Sydney.

Set 468 for victory, the Blues were 2-46 at stumps on day three on Sunday, 422 runs from an improbable victory.

Left-arm spinner Holland made the initial breakthrough, bowling Daniel Hughes with a fine delivery for 21 after the opener's first five scoring strokes were boundaries.

Chris Tremain bowled Nick Larkin for eight close to stumps .

Holland, in his first interstate appearance since last season's Sheffield Shield final, earlier took 5-67 off 33 overs, to help the Bushrangers to a 319-run first innings lead. The last time two-Test tweaker Holland played, he was named player of the Sheffield Shield final back in March after claiming eight wickets, including a career-best 7-82 against Tasmania in the first innings.

The Bushrangers batted for just 21 overs in their second innings, with captain Aaron Finch declaring at 3-148.

Opener Marcus Harris stared with a run a ball 62 and Finch blasted 43 in a spectacular 28-ball cameo.

Glenn Maxwell followed up his first innings 278 with 16.

NSW opening bowler Trent Copeland took 2-52.

Lower order batsman Steve O'Keefe scored a fluent unbeaten 50 to post the Blues' top first-innings score in their tally of 243.

SCOREBOARD

VICTORIA: 1st innings 9(dec)-562
NSW: 1st innings 243

VICTORIA: 2nd innings 
T Dean lbw Bollinger 0
M Harris not out 62
G Maxwell c Henriques b Copeland 16
A Finch c Larkin b Copeland 43
C White not out 19
Sundries (2lb 6w) 8
TOTAL (for three wickets, dec)  148

FALL: 0 (Dean), 37 (Maxwell), 106 (Finch).
BOWLING: D Bollinger 6-0-38-1, T Copeland 9-1-52-2, S O'Keefe 2-0-25-0 (1w), S Abbott 3-0-24-0 (3w), M Henriques 1-0-7-0.
Overs: 21.

NSW: 2nd innings
D Hughes b Holland 21
N Maddinson not out 17
N Larkin b Tremain 8
K Patterson not out 0
Sundries  0
TOTAL (for two wickets)  46

FALL: 31 (Hughes), 46 (Larkin).
BOWLING: P Siddle 3-0-16-0, C Tremain 5-2-14-1, S Boland 5-2-7-0, J Holland 6-2-9-1.
Overs: 19.
 

 AAP