I’m excited.
This has been a big weekend for Victorians.
Dirty Dirk took 4 for today and helped an IPL side actually win a game.
Victoria beat Delhi up in their first champion’s league match.
And Australia picked another Victorian for a tour.
It might have been some useless one-day series that no one will really care about, but I don’t care, another Victorian has been noticed.
A spinny Victorian, sure he bowls that poncey left arm spin crap, but he can bowl.
It is too early to tell if he is the real deal or not, he hasn’t played in more than 10 games in any format for Victoria yet.
But in Victoria’s one game he showed something. This was his first game in front of an international audience only hours after he was announced as an Australian squad member. He had every reason to fail.
Instead he bowled quite well against Dilshan and Kartik; two guys that should and could have smashed him everywhere.
Before yesterday he was probably going to India as a work experience cricketer, but he could now find himself slipped in to the side on the tracks that spin. Thanks to Lalit he is getting some great practice.
He is going to go the distance in this tournament eventually; he isn’t the Umar Gul of spin or anything.
Victoria rate him highly, and in only a short time he seems to have replaced Bryce McGain as the main 2020 spin option for them.
But what I liked best was how relaxed he looked. It took Nathan Hauritz 5 years at the top level to look as relaxed as Holland did the first time in front of a live studio audience.
All in all he raises my pulse more after watching him only three times than Hauritz has in his whole career, although they have one thing in common, neither has taken a 5 wicket haul in first class cricket.
I like him, it is still early days, but he was one of the two spinners I mentioned in my Australian spinners and zombies post along with Steven Smith, who has also bowled well in the league.
Australian spin may not be dead.
