Scotty Boland eyeing a place in Australia WTC playing 11 as Australia look to defend their test champion crown.
Scotty Boland and Josh Hazlewood are competing for the final bowling spot in Australia’s XI for the WTC final.
Scott Boland, who is competing against Josh Hazlewood for a berth in the World Test Championship final next week, claims to be pain-free for the first time in eighteen months and is determined to give Australia’s selectors a hard time.
Despite winning Player of the Match in his most recent Test match against India in January in Sydney, 36-year-old Boland is vying for a berth in the WTC final XI. He hasn’t played cricket since Victoria’s second-last Sheffield Shield match of Australia’s domestic season in early March due to persistent knee pain, and he wasn’t picked in Sri Lanka when Australia only fielded one quick and three spinners in each of the two Test matches.
Boland, who replaced the injured Hazlewood for three Test matches, made a significant impact on the Border-Gavaskar series, taking 21 wickets at an average of 13. When he was chosen over Hazlewood for the 2023 WTC final, he was also Australia’s best fast. Although Hazlewood is fully recovered after bowling brilliantly throughout the IPL (22 wickets at an average of 18) to help Royal Challengers Bengaluru win their first title, he is aware that he is not guaranteed to play against South Africa at Lord’s.
After playing through knee pain for the past year and a half, Boland said the three months off had been essential to getting his knee back to normal. He also hopes to make the selectors’ task as challenging as possible.
“I’m really happy with how my body’s feeling at the moment,” Boland said. “Pain free for probably the first time in about 18 months. So it’s feeling really good.
“My goal for probably the last two months was just get myself and my body in the position where I can put my hand up and be ready to go if it goes my way. I probably felt like at the back end of the Shield season, my knee was sort of, not wearing away, but wasn’t going how I wanted to go. And I didn’t feel like I was bowling how I wanted. But now I feel like I’m in a really good spot that I can bowl how I want to bowl. It’s pulling up really well, so that’s all I can do, and I just want to make their decision as hard as possible.”