Australia seamer Scott Boland has made huge noises in world cricket since his Test debut in the home 2021/22 Ashes where he returned with sensational figures of 6/7 on his Test debut at Melbourne.
Boland is only the second indigenous men’s Australian cricketer after Jason Gillespie. Boland has an outstanding Test record so far: in 14 innings in 8 Tests he’s bowled in, the lanky seamer has taken 30 wickets at a mind-blowing average of 14.55 and parsimonious economy of 2.27.
His latest outing came in the WTC Final 2023 against India at the Oval where the 34-year-old seamer took a couple of wickets in India’s first innings, both bowled, and both with deliveries that left the viewers gasping and the batters – Shubman Gill and KS Bharat – dumbfounded.
In fact, the ball that dismissed Shubman Gill was one of the best deliveries bowled by an Aussie pacer in the past 17 years of Test cricket in England. Cricket data company Cricviz said that the ball that dismissed Gill – pitching way outside off-stump and than sharply seaming in significantly to rattle the off-stump – had a “33% chance of taking a wicket re our Expected Wickets at @CricViz” and that it was “the 10th most threatening bowled by an Aussie in England since 2006”.
Coming to Boland, one interesting and lesser known fact about the Victorian pacer is that he also played in the Indian Premier League under the captaincy of MS Dhoni, long before making his Test debut.
Has Scott Boland played in the IPL?
Yes, Scott Boland played in the IPL 2016 under MS Dhoni‘s captaincy for Rising Pune Supergiants. Boland picked 2 wickets in 2 matches for RPSG – Carlos Brathwaite and Sanju Samson were his wickets.
Scott Boland got to play in the ongoing WTC Final because Josh Hazlewood was not completely fit and the pacer grabbed his chance to pick two Indian wickets. However, come the first Ashes Test later this month, Boland might have to make way for Hazlewood.
