Cooper Connolly: Australian selectors the latest to show confidence in WA’s all-round rising star

Everywhere he plays, Cooper Connolly instils confidence in people. It’s an incredible trait for a 21-year-old from Perth’s beaches who looks as if he has rolled in out of the water and onto the big stage. Those stages have got bigger and bigger for Connolly, who has now been picked on a Test tour for the first time, part of Australia’s 16-man travelling party for two matches against Sri Lanka later this month. He famously won Perth Scorchers a title by blasting 25 off 11 balls against the Brisbane Heat as a teenager. That was just four games into a professional career. Western Australia had so much confidence in him they hardly flinched when handing him a debut in last season’s Sheffield Shield final. It was a call they had been wanting to make for some time. Connolly gave national selectors the same confidence when they picked him to play white-ball cricket for his country in October. And now, with just four first-class matches under his belt — one a shield final and another for Australia A — they will trust him on a Test tour to Sri Lanka. “There is a lot to like,” national selection chair George Bailey said. “Technically we like it, temperament we like, character we like and clearly skillset, there is a lot to like there as well.” Australia has been crying out for a left-arm spinner for some time, a bowler that turns it the opposite way to stalwart Nathan Lyon. They will try Queenslander-turned-Tasmanian Matt Kuhmemann as a frontline option again on this tour, but Connolly offers them a more flexible option. The 21-year-old has been described as the perfect all-round cricket package. He bats, bowls and is among the best young fielders in the country. And in an old-school way, Bailey revealed Connolly’s stint in the one-day and Twenty20 programs was part of selectors wrapping their heads around how he goes about it. “I guess on the first-class front there is not a great deal of games behind him, but he is one, and it’s not the first time we have utilised this, but he has been around that one-day group and we have, in the past, sort of used that as a stepping stone at times to see a player a bit more find out a bit more about the way they play and he was obviously the beneficiary of that,” he said. “He was picked in the Australia A game at the start of the (season) against India and then joined the one-day group after that. “He is someone we have had our eye on for a period of time and like what we’re seeing.” WA cricket great Justin Langer, writing exclusively for The West Australian this week, said Connolly had the perfect opportunity to learn from some of the best players in the country. “His all-round ability must be a tempting prospect — and, on top of that, imagine what he could learn from Nathan Lyon, Smith and Travis Head while they are playing the way they are,” he said. “For now, and the future, (Sam) Konstas and Connolly might add something exciting to the mix of this Australian team.” Fellow left-hander Head is a player Connolly has been compared to as his game has developed. It is most stark when he plays the flashy square drives that have become part of his batting in the Big Bash League this season. Former Test opener Shaun Marsh is another Connolly drew comparisons too before he had even debuted for the Scorchers because of his power at such a young age. There is a tour to India slated for 2027. Winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy away from home has long been Australian cricket’s final frontier, but the bulk of the group that sealed that prize for the first time in a decade last week are unlikely to head there again. That’s why giving players like Connolly, Konstas, Nathan McSweeney and Todd Murphy experience on the low and slow wickets of the subcontinent became a factor on this tour. “Clearly there is lots of work to go and this will be a big challenge for him, as it will for all those guys that are travelling to Sri Lanka, particularly for the first time, but I think it is a place where even the guys who have been two or three times, I think the subcontinent conditions that you can face, those repeat entries and exposure to those conditions certainly helps,” Bailey said. Connolly is the leading run-scorer in the Big Bash in a season where the club had planned for him to settle into its middle order, but he was instead parachuted to No.3. The young gun had done the business before in big matches, but putting together regular match-winning performances has been the biggest stride in his cricket this summer. “His maturity is beyond his years, he has played really well in the handful of shield games he has played for Western Australia, he has been so impressive. He came in and debuted in a shield final, contributed with the bat,” Scorchers captain Ashton Turner said. “Now we are seeing it at the top of the order in white-ball cricket, he is really versatile, he’s mature, he’s got the game, he bats well, bowls well, fields well, he is a handy guy to have in the squad because he can cover a number of positions and with experiences like this we are only going to see him grow and develop as a cricketer. “No doubt opportunities are going to pop up more regularly in the Australian side for him.” Captain Pat Cummins played three Test matches before his debut as an 18-year-old, Nathan Lyon had played five before he was blooded in Sri Lanka. They are the only two modern Australian cricketers to debut with such little experience. If Connolly debuts in Galle next month it will be rare, but not unheard of. And with all the confidence of WA selectors throwing him into a domestic final, there is little doubt it would be the first of many.