Another Test, another Boland debate for Australia
With Scott Boland pushing for a recall and Nathan Lyon finding his rhythm again, Australia must weigh up the conditions, the forecast and the value of their spin option
“Scotty's embarrassing me, mate.”
Pat Cummins had just completed a lethal spell himself at training in Durban when he decided to make this admission. It was to Mitchell Starc about how he’d been out-bowled by Scott Boland, who he was sharing the net with. Quite right too. For, in reality Boland was truly embarrassing, not so much his captain but the entire Australian top order with a characteristic inquisition of techniques on what was a surface perfectly suited to the metronome.
This was two days before the first Test at Kingsmead. Two days out from the second Test in Gqeberha, Boland was doing it again. This time on a bouncy side pitch on the square at the iconic St George’s Park. Sneaking past the outside edge of Nic Maddinson, getting Josh Inglis to duck and weave, and making life very uneasy for every other batter who stepped up to the plate. Not that any of it is surprising to the Australian camp or those who watch the team’s training sessions routinely. And most importantly their captain, who put it very succinctly on Saturday when asked about how tempted he was to play Boland in Gqeberha.
“You know when you got someone like Scotty every Test match, you leave some training sessions shaking your head, how that bloke isn’t in your first XI,” said Cummins on the eve of the Test where Australia could seal the series.
That means not for the first time in the last 12 months, Australia find themselves in a situation where they are more than tempted to flirt with the idea of bringing Boland back to join his three fast bowling colleagues. At the expense of Nathan Lyon, like they did at the Sabina Park in Jamaica last July and then again at the Gabba during the Ashes in December. Much to Lyon’s chagrin.
Though it’s not confirmed yet, there were some signs on the eve of the Test that might suggest that the Boland option might be deployed for Gqeberha. As he’s prone to do, the 37-year-old Victorian seamer showed up to the ground to prepare like he would be playing the next morning. He put his cones down on that typical Boland length on the pitch and began hitting them with precision. But he didn’t for a change go through his usual quota of nearly 4 overs because he was asked to pad up and get into the nets for a hit. Only after chief selector George Bailey had wandered down to the middle and had a longish chat with Boland. Again, not a confirmation but a giveaway for sure.
The final call will be taken when the Aussies return on Sunday morning and firstly inspect the pitch, with its 6-8 mm grass on top, but equally the skies above, with the forecast continuing to look ominous for the opening two days of the Test. Boland’s last three Test series after all range between the remarkable to the ridiculous. He averaged 13.19 for his 21 wickets against India two summers ago and 24.95 for his 20 against England in the Ashes. In between, he also got himself a Test hat-trick in Kingston, alongside match figures of 6/36. Most of these Tests came in the absence of either Josh Hazlewood or Cummins, and at times both. But with both back and fitter than ever, Boland has struggled to keep his place in the pecking order.
And as he gets deeper into his 30s, there’s also a feeling of understandable foreboding around how much more of Boland that Australia have access to, even if he continues to remain at his peak as he has been from the day he made his sensational Test debut at the MCG. There is no doubt that he would be a handful for the South African batting line-up, which will also now have two new batters, one on debut and the other with 2 Tests to his name with nothing really to show for it.
But where that decision would leave Lyon is another major question that the selectors will need to weigh up, considering he looked to be getting back to his best in Durban, even if he had only the two wickets—both off breathtaking catches by Steve Smith at slip. Would the selectors get too swayed by the relatively more grass left on top of the pitch and the weather, when they know how destructive spin has been in Gqeberha for a number of years now.
Maybe, it will remain status quo with Lyon continuing to pair up with his fellow future hall-of-fame bowlers, with whom he now has taken over 600 wickets as a group. Leaving Boland to keep embarrassing his batters in the nets. And for Cummins to shake his head, once again dumbfounded by how he can’t find room for his x-factor weapon and solve the Boland conundrum.
