Australia v India: Surviving Scott Boland is a true test of a batsman

Forget about naming stadiums, stands or statues after Scott Boland, the Victorian seamer deserves to have his name stamped on a pitch.

We love naming stands and ends after cricketers at cricket grounds around the world. Some even end up getting stadiums named after them. And you can imagine Scott Boland being bestowed with that honour at a Test venue in Australia. They will have a section at the MCG in Scotty’s name. He might actually even end up getting that statue after all. Unless the SCG beat them to it.

But Scotty deserves something already. He’s earned it. The time is right. And maybe for now, it’ll be most apt if we got that irresistible length on the pitch he lands the ball on repeatedly to run through opposition batting line-ups named after him. Call it the Bo-length.

How often does he hit it? How rarely does he miss it? How much damage does he cause with it? How many Test wickets has he already snared, courtesy the Bo-length?

Scott Boland dismissed Virat Kohli for the second time in as many days at the SCG Picture: Getty Images

And why not? There were some who wanted to rename backward point as Jonty Rhodes corner. Celebrating the destruction that the 35-year-old has caused over the last three summers by relentlessly landing the ball in that corridor of confusion for batters from the world over is only fair. It’ll be the perfect nod, to the impact Scott Boland has had on the Australian cricket summer since making his memorable debut in Melbourne on Boxing Day in 2021.

Like he did yet again, for the umpteenth time, on an unforgettable Day 2 of the SCG Test. Firstly, getting rid of the openers, both with deliveries that should be etched in cricketing folklore. The one to knock out Yashasvi Jaiswal in particular. It was trademark Boland. It was Boland at his best. The ball from around the wicket pitched on the Bo-length and angled into the left-hander who like so many batters facing Boland wasn’t forward or back. All Jaiswal could do was see the ball jag past his bat and crash into his stumps. A couple of overs later, he had Virat Kohli, nicked off in the same fashion he’d nicked him off in the first innings. That Bo-length again. Uncertainty from the batter. All over.

It was a manic day of Test cricket. To say a lot happened is an understatement. Everything from another fiery spell from Jasprit Bumrah. An injury scare to Jasprit Bumrah. Virat Kohli’s final Test innings on Australian soil. Rishabh Pant taking adventurous Test batting to a new level of ridiculousness with a 33-ball 61. And a Test that wasn’t simply on fast-forward. It was on steroids.

With Boland finishing with four out of six Indian wickets. His name being taken in the same breath as Charlie “the Terror” Turner, Fred “Demon” Spofforth, Bert Ironmonger and Alan Davidson. That’s not just elite company. That’s the legends’ league.

Yashasvi Jaiswal was helpless in preventing being bowled by a Boland delivery Picture: Getty Images

If Boland was the bowling star for Australia, Beau Webster was their batting hero, that too in his first-ever Test innings. The towering Tasmanian was as unflappable with the bat as Boland was with the ball.

For some of us Sheffield Shield romantics, it was also a day that counted as validation of the significance and the quality of the premier domestic cricket competition in Australia. With every run Webster scored on Saturday, you could see smiles emerging on every hardworking Shield cricketer around the country, the ones that put in the hard yards when only a handful are watching at the ground.

Webster’s performances with bat, ball and in the slips were validation for him having been the pre-eminent performer in the Shield over the last two years. He also became only the second Tasmanian to raise his bat on his debut innings after Ricky Ponting. The 31-year-old’s ascension to the biggest stage after all is a reward for nearly a decade of wheeling away in the background with no guarantee of winning a baggy green cap.

Just like it was for Boland when he earned the tag of Test cricketer. For years prior to that, Boland was the yardstick, the barometer of the quality of the Sheffield Shield. No batter could consider himself ready for the next level as a batter unless he survived the Boland test, let alone scoring runs against him. I’d often talk about overcoming the Boland challenge as being the finishing school for a batter coming through the ranks at state level.

And then he burst on to the Test stage at a point in his career, where he’d probably thought his time had come and gone, to pose the same challenges to all comers who lands in this country.

For, let’s face it. The Boland test has fast become the ultimate challenge for every visiting batter on Australian soil. The one that you have to graduate to consider yourself good enough to succeed here. His record of 47 wickets at home at 13.10 apiece is proof that not many have passed it with flying colours.

The Indian batters on show at the SCG certainly didn’t. The Indian openers certainly didn’t. Virat Kohli certainly didn’t. It was all about Boland. It was all about the Bo-length. On a day we could celebrate the richness of the Sheffield Shield vicariously through the heroics of two of its ultimate doyens.