After Australia’s disappointing T20 World Cup campaign, the hunt continues for a long-term replacement for the great left-armer<\/p>\n
Ben Dwarshuis says the competition will be fierce to fill the void left by Mitchell Starc’s retirement from Twenty20 internationals, as a clutch of pacers continue to jostle \u200cfor a rare opening in Australia’s white-ball attack.<\/p>\n
Starc, Australia’s third-highest wicket-taker with 759 wickets across all formats, behind only \u200cShane Warne and Glenn McGrath, retired from T20 internationals in September last year.<\/p>\n
His departure has offered up a place in an \u200cAustralian fast-bowling group long dominated by the great left-armer and fellow pacers Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, though none of them were quite able to make it their own during the team’s disappointing recent T20 World Cup campaign.<\/p>\n
Dwarshuis, who made his international debut in 2022, has featured in only six one-day internationals and 15 T20Is, competing for selection with the likes of Nathan Ellis, Xavier Bartlett and Spencer Johnson.<\/p>\n
“There’s a whole heap of Australian bowlers who have sort of sat behind Mitch \u200cStarc, Hazlewood and \u200cCummins, who have \u2060just done amazing things for Australian cricket and haven’t really opened the door \u200bfor anyone else to take their spot,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Mitch retiring obviously opens up a spot. There’s a whole handful of guys that are trying to get into that spot.<\/p>\n
“Competition’s fierce, but knowing that there is a spot available means a potential avenue there if you perform.”<\/p>\n
Dwarshuis, who was signed by Indian Premier League side Punjab Kings for a whopping \u206044 million Indian rupees ($472,000), said franchise leagues have become an increasingly \u200cimportant shop \u200bwindow for players chasing international selection.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old is the second-highest wicket-taker in the history of the Big Bash League with \u200b164 scalps.<\/p>\n
“Any time you take \u200cthe field and have an opportunity to perform, there’s always going to be eyes watching, whether it’s from \u200bAustralia or other leagues,” he said.<\/p>\n
“With the viewership these competitions get, it’s very easy to have a couple of good years and everyone’s talking about you.<\/p>\n
“But then if you’re not performing well, that sort of viewership \u200bleads \u200bto maybe less opportunities there.”<\/p>\n
Punjab currently sit top of the IPL standings with two wins from two, though Dwarshuis is yet to get a look-in with Ricky Ponting’s side given their squad depth.<\/p>\n
Asked what his prized wicket would be this season, he singled out one Indian legend.<\/p>\n
“There are probably six or seven Indian players \u200bI could rattle off,” he said, “but it’s tough to go past taking Virat Kohli’s wicket, whether it’s at \u200bhome or down in Bangalore. He \u2060would certainly be one I’d be happy to take.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Australia’s disappointing T20 World Cup campaign, the hunt continues for a long-term replacement for the great left-armer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85,83],"class_list":["post-584095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}