Chris Rogers puts Will Pucovski in best position to earn Test cap
Victoria coach Chris Rogers knows what it takes to open the batting for Australia and he’s convinced that role will suit rising star Will Pucovski.
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Will Pucovski’s shock promotion to the top of Victoria’s batting order was designed to push the red-ball specialist as David Warner’s next opening partner in Australia’s Test line-up.
News Corp understands that new Victoria coach Chris Rogers helped determine that Pucovski’s best shot at earning a Baggy Green was as an opener, rather than a No.5 or No.6 batsman as previously believed.
Rogers opened the batting for Australia in all of the 25 Tests he played, mostly with Warner at the other end. A Warner-Pucovski pairing would deliver Australia a nice blend of finesse and fire from their contrasting styles.
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Pucovski has replaced former Test batsman Nic Maddinson as Marcus Harris’s opening partner for Victoria, and the pair put on a Sheffield Shield-record partnership of 486 runs against South Australia last week.
Harris was surprised to learn he would walk to the crease with Pucovski – and not Maddinson – against South Australia, and the partnership will continue against Western Australia on Sunday.
“I only found out I was opening with Will the day before the game, so I’m not sure how long Bucky (Rogers) had been thinking of doing it,” Harris said.
“They gave him a full-on bumper barrage there for a period of time and he played it really well. His game has come a long way.
“He never looks like he’s going to throw an innings away.
“He batted so well, especially opening the batting, he’d never done it before.”
Pucovski’s unbeaten 255 was his fifth first-class century and he recently signed a maiden Big Bash contract with Melbourne Stars.
Incumbent Test opener Joe Burns has made seven, 29 and a duck in his three innings for Queensland so far this season.
Pucovski, 22, opened the batting during his youth days, although there is no rush for the prodigy to crack Australia’s Test team. Those close to him want to ensure he is physically, technically and mentally ready to receive his Baggy Green.
Pucovski’s auditions before the blockbuster four-Test series against India will be limited due to Victoria refusing to play a Shield game shortly after quarantining in South Australia.
Cricket Australia cut the season from 10 matches to nine for all states and now the Vics are set to cram in seven games after the Big Bash season.
That workload could put a strain on fast bowlers although Cricket Victoria simply didn’t feel ready to start the season midway through October.
Pucovski is a good chance to earn selection in Australia’s expanded squad against India, although a debut at Adelaide Oval on December 17 seems unlikely.
“To get a 250 not-out, opening for the first time, is pretty good,” Harris said.
“It was a really good relationship in the middle, he was pretty relaxed. Sometimes he gets wound up about things you don’t have to get wound up about.
“But he’s an unbelievable player for such a young kid. And he makes bug hundreds all the time. He was really relaxed … he didn’t even look like getting out at any stage.”
Why Pucovski feels read to tackle the big time
Will Pucovski believes he has done the “head rehab” to be ready for Test cricket, but concedes his challenges are ongoing.
As the selection debate once again starts to heat up around the batting prodigy on the eve of the Indian summer, Pucovski has opened up about the mental battles that stopped him twice previously from making his debut, and declared that if a third opportunity comes; “I’m going to come back and really dominate this thing.”
He and all-rounder Cameron Green are starting to put enormous pressure on Australia‘s settled incumbents ahead of next month’s first Test, and Pucovski’s case has only grown stronger with the added dimension of now being an opening batsman.
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In a deeply honest interview with The Risk Equation Podcast, which Pucovski gave a week before last weekend’s dam busting 255 not out for Victoria, he says that while he now feels genuinely ready for the next level, he’s aware that he remains on a “journey” with his mental wellbeing that will require constant work.
“I see how far I’ve come and how much closer I am to being ready for that next level and I’m at a stage now where I feel I actually am, and truly believe I’d have the mental processes and capabilities to get there,” Pucovski told podcast host, Dr Chris Maguire.
“… It has been a journey and it still is well and truly a journey. I’m still working on that sort of stuff every day and I’m doing different things to improve my life.
“I look back on it and I go, ‘I’ve made so many strides in those two years, but I’ve still got so far to go.
“I want to keep improving and I want to play for Australia and I want to do it for a long time, but I need to do probably more work than your Average Joe to make sure I’m mentally in a head space that can deal with all that stuff.
“If someone’s got a dodgy hamstring they’ve got to do extra hamstring rehab exercises. My brain has probably been through a bit more than your average 22-year-old’s, so I’ve got to do a bit more rehab on that to make sure I give myself the best chance to succeed at that level one day.
“… It’s been quite an interesting journey so far but I feel like it’s only the start, which is good.”
Pucovski tells The Risk Equation he does not think he has a mental health issue as such, and when he explains “my head has been through a bit more than other people,” he draws a link to the repeated problems he’s also experienced with concussion, dating back to an incident playing football as a 16-year-old where he missed six months of school.
The first watershed moment for Pucovski was when he took a break from the game after scoring a double century for Victoria in October 2018 at the WACA, describing the innings as an “out of body experience” where he felt completely detached from any emotion about what he’d done.
Later that summer, he was on the verge of a Test debut against Sri Lanka, but wasn’t selected.
Pucovski said pulling out of an Australia A selection trial last summer when he was again poised for a baggy green had been a significant turning point, because he realised he’d got “lazy” with the mental routines and “head rehab” he had put in place for himself since October 2018.
“I’m glad it happened because it was that wake-up call. And once I’d pulled out and officially pulled the pin, I remember writing down everything that came to my mind about what had got me to where I was at that stage of my life. I just went, ‘I’m coming after this,’” he said.
“From there, (I thought), ‘now this is it, this is the line in the sand where this is going to be my story.
“Where it’s happened to me twice to a degree, and third time I’m going to come back and really dominate this thing.
“… I’m going to make sure I’m in the right space. That’s not to say I’m in the perfect space now, but again I’m a lot further down the line than I was last year and I know probably now through experience that it’s going to be an up and down sort of journey.
“On some cricket days I’m going to wake up and think, ‘why am I doing this?’ But I do know why. At the end of the day I know how rewarding it is for me personally.”