‘We all want to play but there's probably no room for all of us’ - Scott Boland on the competition for place in Australia eleven

‌Scott Boland has always been on the fringes of the Australian cricket team after making his Test debut in December 2021 at the age of 32. The pacer from Victoria has always been considered as a replacement bowler coming into the side in the event of an injury to the frontline trio of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.

But that has not stopped the bowler from having a stellar Test career for the Aussies. After making a dream debut against England at his home of Melbourne during the Ashes summer of 2021-22 with a Player of the Match performance which included a magical spell of 6/7 in four overs, he went on to finish that series with a tally of 18 wickets from three matches.

But he had to wait for another six matches to play his next game. With 56 wickets from 13 matches at an excellent average of 17.66 and a strike rate of 38.2, the gritty pacer has displayed top levels of mental toughness to come in and perform whenever presented with a chance. Once again, the 36-year-old pacer finds himself in familiar territory as he is in a race with Josh Hazlewood to make it to the Australian team for the WTC final. This is despite winning the Player of the Match award in his last Test against India during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Sydney early this year and the pacer is not complaining.

"I felt like I had a couple of really strong games," Boland was quoted as saying to ESPNcricinfo. "But Josh is obviously a world-class bowler. He's one of the best bowlers in the world coming off a really good IPL. So I'm sure he'll be wanting the same thing here. Obviously, we all want to play but there's probably not room for all of us."

With the sore knee that has affected him throughout the last year and a half behind him, Boland is raring to go once again pushing the selectors in his attempt to make it to the playing eleven for the second-straight WTC final. He featured in the Australian side in their inaugural WTC final against India picking up five wickets in the side’s 209-run win.

"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”, he explained. “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. I was able to get it to a spot where it's really strong, and then it's just gotten better and better since I started running and bowling, which was seven weeks ago.”

Though he played his last international match around six months ago, Boland is confident that he is back in full flow despite not playing any practice matches in his side’s preparation for the WTC final. He mentioned that he was satisfied with the net sessions and centre wicket practice which has been pretty similar to the usual warm-up games.

"I think we're really comfortable with the way that we do it now," Boland said. "I don't think we've played a practice game since I've been in the team. We haven't had a scheduled tour game. So I think you can get as much out of training if you have the right conditions. And I think the set-up we've got at Beckenham is perfect. There's a really nice centre-wicket, beautiful run-ups, all that kind of stuff. So it's as close you can get to a game without playing a game.”

"For me personally, I like that the best. You can just get what you need to get done. And then all the other guys have been playing IPL, the other three bowlers, so they're ready to go. They're match-hardened. And I think the intensity of the IPL helps when you go from format to format,” he concluded.