New South Wales won the Shield for the second time, successfully defending their title from the previous year.

The other participating teams were Victoria and South Australia.

[3][4] As had been the case in the 1937 tournament, the four teams played a round-robin schedule, meeting each other team once, with two competition points were on offer in each game.

The points were awarded as follows: At the end of these preliminary games, the top two teams played each other to determine the champions, while the remaining two teams faced each other to determine third place.

In the event of a tie between teams in terms of points, the tiebreaker used would have been the net runs for and against, with the team achieving the greater value placing in the higher position.