The Australian cricket team is blessed with a bowling attack that frankly, embarrasses the majority of the six men attempting to make enough runs for them to defend.
Captain Pat Cummins will go down as one of the statistically greatest bowlers Australia has ever seen and Mitchell Starc remains forever wild and in need of taming. But in Mitchell Johnson-style, he is able to rip teams apart in a session through sheer pace and swing whilst looking a little ordinary in others.
Spinner Nathan Lyon feeds off the platform laid and cleans up middle orders with ease off the back of bounce that few finger spinners can achieve.
Josh Hazlewood, despite short-term injury problems that continue to plague him, could still rise somewhere inside the ten best Australia has ever seen come the end of his Test career.
Standing in the background waiting for the limited opportunities he has received since his first introduction to Test cricket in late 2021, is Scott Boland.
The 35-year-old has been something of a revelation, based on nothing but a metronomic approach to the craft of bowling since bursting onto the scene.
Eleven Test matches across three calendar years of play have brought him the most astonishing set of statistics. On just four of the 21 innings in which Boland has bowled, the accurate paceman failed to take a wicket.
Outside of those innings, he has snared 40 scalps at an average of 20.42. His strike rate of 41.5 is elite and far in advance of both Starc and Hazlewood.
The tall lefty strikes brilliantly well at 48.2 and the New South Welshman does very well at 53.1.
Boland’s average is also supreme compared to the men he is in direct competition with for a spot in the traditional three-pronged Australian pace attack.
Starc, a loose cannon and bowler always prepared to shed a few in an attempt to claim a wicket, averages a respectable 27.54. Whilst Hazlewood is considerably better at 24.58.
Both have served Australia with pride, diligence and esteem in the long careers they have enjoyed. Yet a fair question is asked by those who wonder why Boland remains the ‘backup’ to the big three and not a man, based on the data he has created over three seasons, capable of dethroning them off the sheer brilliance of his own figures.
Sure, Boland’s sample size is far smaller than the two men who always appear to have the edge when it comes to selectors looking to choose the best side available for an upcoming Test.
Yet have we finally arrived at the point where Boland’s achievements can no longer be ignored and a Test selection above some of the men he has filled in for on eleven occasions is finally due.
Boland has always been nothing more than the man selected as a backup should the big three be broken up in some way.
In Perth, it was Hazlewood not quite cherry-ripe for the contest and the Victorian stepped in, as usual, and did more than what was probably expected of him.
Scott Boland celebrates. (Photo by Gareth Copley-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
The 5-105 runs that Boland took in the Australian’s emphatic victory over a disappointing India in the second Test was atypical. Immaculate line and length were once again the cornerstone of his success during the match.
With Starc jagging plenty of wickets with brilliant balls in spite of his waywardness and Hazelwood due to return, he will surely have prepared himself for another Test ‘off’ when the squad arrived in Brisbane.
That appears to be the likely scenario as we head to the Sunshine State for the third match of the series.
That raises the fundamental question of exactly how low the averages and strike rates associated with Scott Boland’s bowling would need to go before he dethrones one of the men perceived to be a better option than him.
Plenty of fans around the country that have jumped aboard the statistically brilliant Boland bandwagon might be starting to get a little frustrated as to just what their man has to do to earn a spot in this team, based purely on the fact that he is, more often than not, outperforming the others when asked to represent his country.
Perhaps it is time for the Australian selectors to look at the pace bowling attack as a four-pronged one and select according to conditions, and with consideration that Boland has been as good as any of them across the short three years he has been in the game of Test cricket.
Something tells me that the cult hero will sit out again in Brisbane and that stinks for the people enjoying following his late-career star, as well as for the player himself who deserves better than reserve status.
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