Steve Smith says Cameron Boyce is in the mix for next year’s World T20 despite minimal impact against England
Leg-spinner Cameron Boyce may have set a world record overnight for the longest distance travelled to bowl just one over. Boyce sent down six balls in Australia’s tense Twenty20 loss to England on Tuesday morning (AEST) in his only match on the Qantas tour of the British Isles.
Having departed Brisbane for Chennai last month to take his place in Australia A’s one-day squad, Boyce then traversed the globe to Cardiff where he was the only specialist T20 player in Australia’s squad.
The Queenslander’s sole over went for 19 and he will now return to the sunshine state, clocking up a 33,000km round-trip in the process. Quick single: England prevail in T20 nailbiter Boyce was brought on in the 14th over by captain Steve Smith in extremely difficult circumstances for a leg-spinner.
Facing two red-hot left-handers in Eoin Morgan and Moeen Ali, with short straight boundaries to defend, Boyce did well to concede only 19 from his over that included two sixes and a four to Moeen. However, it wasn’t the worst over of the innings.
Shane Watson’s effort six balls later went for 22 as Morgan unleashed on the veteran allrounder, crashing three sixes towards the River Taff and the evading spectators in the firing line.
Despite Boyce’s minimal impact in the one-off T20, Smith says the leggie is right in contention to travel to India for the World T20 in March. Quick single: Five things we learned from the Cardiff T20 “When we went to Dubai, which are probably similar conditions to what we’re going to get in India for the World Cup, I thought he bowled really nicely there,” Smith said. “Today was quite a tough time to bowl, with two left-handers going.
“But he was over here for one game and I thought he deserved a crack, and tried to get a wicket. “It was quite hard going for him and they got him away a bit, but he’ll certainly learn from that and continue to get better.”
