Aus vs Ind 5th Test – BGT – Great Scott Boland, the supersub calling the shots for Australia

The odds were against Australia going through another full summer without needing a replacement in their pace attack, but it’s worth remembering that Boland still needs an injury to get into the side ahead of the big three. He will go down as one of the game’s finest reserves.

In this series, it has been Josh Hazlewood twice withdrawing – first with a side strain and then with a calf problem – which has allowed Boland the opportunity to add to an extraordinary home record which, by the close of the first day, read 43 wickets at 13.34.

It certainly fitted the category of not being a bad toss to lose for Pat Cummins. He would have batted, but it was a cloudy morning and as the players took the field the floodlights came on. The pitch had more bounce, movement and carry than any at the SCG in recent memory.

It’s therefore also worth adding that anything Boland can do, Jasprit Bumrah could repeat as he hinted at in the action-packed conclusion to the day’s play.

But for Australia, there was a brittle India top order to aim for amid the extraordinary decision from captain Rohit Sharma not to play this Test, regardless of whether it really was a selfless call by him or a selfless call he was encouraged to make.

“He’s been an amazing bowler the way he bowls line and length especially in Test cricket. It’s quite difficult because he’s so used to playing in these condition and you don’t feel like he’s playing his first initial matches, it feels like he’s been there for a long period of time”

Rishabh Pant on Scott Boland

“We’ve got pretty set plans on how we want to bowl to him,” Boland said on Fox Cricket of Australia’s success against Kohli this season. “He sort of feels like he leaves a lot and then he wants to play the ball once he gets in. So once he gets in, we just want to switch our lines a little bit to fifth stump and it’s working at the moment.”

It was the fourth time Boland had removed Kohli in Tests, putting him top of his strike list alongside Joe Root. That Root is there is also a link to the one time Boland has really been dominated in Test cricket as England used his metronomic strengths against him to take him for 4.91 an over during the 2023 Ashes. Should Boland be part of Australia’s attack at any stage in next summer’s Ashes, it will be fascinating to see how England’s batters approach him.

There have been glimpses of India trying to do something similar in this series, but brief onslaughts from Reddy and Pant in Adelaide came with India a long way back in the game, while Pant’s scoop at the MCG ended at deep third. At the SCG, they barely tried to fire a shot, albeit it being a very challenging surface. Boland’s spells for the day lined up as: 5-3-5-1; 7-3-10-1; 5-2-4-2; 3-0-12-0.

“If there’s anything in the wicket he finds it, and if there’s nothing in the wicket he still manages to find a way through,” Webster said. “He’s relentless. Think it’s his line and length and his natural angle makes it really hard for right-handers, but when we see him go around the wicket to left-handers, it’s impressive stuff.”

Even though just one wicket fell in the afternoon session as a partnership built between Pant and Ravindra Jadeja – the latter was dropped off Boland by Smith on 3 – it was at such a rate that the scoreboard never got away from Australia. When wickets then fell, India had barely moved anywhere.

Boland is a favourite wherever he goes around the country, and come the second innings of this match, there is little doubt he’ll be the same threat again. If Australia do regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Boland will have been a major reason why

“I think he’s been an amazing bowler the way he bowls line and length especially in Test cricket,” Pant said. “It’s quite difficult because he’s so used to playing in these condition and you don’t feel like he’s playing his first initial matches, it feels like he’s been there for a long period of time.”

Credit to Australia’s hold over the scoring goes to the overall bowling effort, and a significant nod to Webster, who sent down 13 overs for 29 and was denied a first Test wicket when Nathan Lyon spilled a chance at gully. It will never be known how close Mitchell Marsh would have come to replicating those efforts, but he had not bowled that volume of overs in a Test innings since his five-wicket haul at The Oval in the 2019 Ashes.

After tea, Boland’s perseverance paid off handsomely when Pant’s patience eventually snapped with a spliced pull to mid-on after an innings that had included more body blows than he could ever recall taking before. The next delivery lifted at Reddy, who sent it to second slip. Boland was then within a whisker of a hat-trick when he whistled the ball past the shoulder of Washington Sundar’s bat.

At the end of the over, he returned to the boundary to a standing ovation from a sold-out SCG. He is a favourite wherever he goes around the country, and come the second innings of this match, there is little doubt he’ll be the same threat again. If Australia do regain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Boland will have been a major reason why.