Trent Copeland’s steady path to a rich seam of form

Trent Copeland’s 5-17 from 18 overs included the scalps of four Test batsmen in is a spell that will be talked about for years.

Trent Copeland celebrates the wicket of Usman Khawaja as he strangled Queensland’s top order Picture: Getty Images

Trent Copeland is disappearing into an Adelaide gym and can’t call back for an hour or so.

“Takes a lot of work to maintain these guns,” he jokes.

Trent Copeland’s wife, netball star Kimberlee Green, appeared to make a joke about hubby’s unique physique when she tweeted a picture of him celebrating a wicket beneath the words “flex”. Copes was gifted limbs more suited to fencing than fast bowling.

Copeland was flexing, in the aforementioned moment, during a spell against Queensland’s sparkling top order that left teammate Harry Conway in awe.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” he told The Weekend Australian. Four Test batsmen dismissed. Barely a run conceded. Over after abstemious over.

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Did you see it? When the statistical trend indicated itself on social media every cricket nuffie in the country tuned their devices to the game between South Australia and NSW.

Copeland, persistent, polite, relentlessly irritating. A dripping tap. A master craftsman at his craftiest. Right arm frugal over the wicket. Parsimonious around.

Both sides had knocked up near enough to 300 each in the first. Queensland was ready to make a game of it in the third. Deck was flat. Conditions friendly. A result unlikely.

Joe Burns on strike looking to set himself up for the first game against India. The fifth delivery of Copeland’s first over caught the outside edge of a reaching bat. “A lovely little hooping outswinger,” the commentator estimated. On watching a replay there is no swing. The pace gentle, the movement minimal, but a man considered one of the best six bats in the country can only nick it through to keeper Peter Nevill.

Marnus Labuschagne set up with two balls that nipped away then trapped in front by a wobbled delivery back into his pads. Out for a duck, Labuschagne reluctantly accepted his fate. Wandered off shaking his head and muttering minor curses.

Mike Atherton, no less, was moved to write about Labuschagne’s cheap dismissal from his vantage point in Britain. This was man bites dog. World news, but the real story was making his way back to the top of his mark.

Copeland 2-0 from eight deliveries.

Bryce Street is found out just before drinks. Copeland working that wobbled seam around the wicket beat the batsman but not the edge of his bat.

Copeland 3-2 from six overs.

Usman Khawaja and Matthew Renshaw attempted to right the ship in the second hour.

Copeland putting the ball on the spot again and again. Coming around the wicket, challenging the batsmen to do something. Anything. The centre held for the best part of 120 minutes as bowler continued with his polite inquires. No force in this angular examination, no anger, just ball after innocuous ball, each on a length and a line which dared batsmen to take a risk should they wish to score. The occasional bouncer to keep them wriggling on the crease. Nobody dared blink.

Copeland 3-2 from 12 overs.

The only number that was changing next to his name was the ever rising tally of maidens. Finally Khawaja cracked. The Queensland captain attempted a drive after drinks in the second session. Thanks for coming.

Copeland 4-2 from 13.1 overs.

Renshaw was the next to lose patience and the battle, his wicket thanks to a spectacular catch from Kurtis Patterson.

Copeland 5-6 from 14.4 overs.

From a distance the deliveries are as unassuming as the man who delivers them. Copeland is perhaps the canniest in Australia. At 34 a craftsman at the top of his field.

As a young man he was a wicketkeeper who picked up money coaching kids, but with no interest in pursuing the craft himself. When he was asked to fling a few down for St George he figured he knew the theory so all he had to do was put it into practice.

Soon after he was walking off the field in his first game for NSW with the figures of 8-92. Not much more time passed before he opened the bowling for Australia in Sri Lanka.

After tending to his guns Copeland is happy to talk to The Weekend Australian about the extraordinary spell against Queensland that saw him put four Test quality batsmen back in the sheds and finish with 5-17 from 18 overs on a track that offered next to nothing.

“It was one of those days,” he said. “There’s times when you bowl a good spell, say five to seven overs or whatever, but for it to go to plan for a full day was one of those ones when you sit back afterwards and think, ‘that was fun’.

“Most of the times when you think like that it’s at Hobart or on the Gabba when you have won the toss and bowled first, its not on day three at Karen Rolton Oval where there’s been a gazillion runs scored.”

His work around the wicket to left handers was something to behold. Copeland, whose pace is modest, understands now he doesn’t have to work on swinging the ball both ways and can rely on using the seam to move the ball a half bat width or so.

“I wish I knew I didn’t have to do it so much when I was 24, even when I played for Australia,” he said. “I am 15 times the bowler I was then now.”

Copeland’s 16th five-wicket haul moves him to 14th on the all-time Sheffield Shield list with 315 scalps. He is, deservedly, in rare company. His baggy blue is his most prized possession, so mank now it must stay inside a bag in another bag when at home. He claims it still fills him with pride each time he puts it out. Says there’s even goosebumps.

“He is the most passionate NSW player ever,” Conway observes. Copeland wouldn’t disagree.

He played three Tests in Sri Lanka in 2011 but the closest he gets these days to that arena is doing analysis for Channel 7’s coverage. His love of tactics, technique and the game shine through in his deconstructions of play.

He has got to this place in life with the same steady patience he got to 315 wickets. The Bathurst boy is a beloved teammate and a respected figure, he has never got ahead of himself.

“People who are fortunate in life need to understand how lucky they are,” he explains. “I’m from the country, I’m not from a family that have everything on a platter, but I had a mum driving me three hours to Sydney on a Tuesday night, we’d leave school and work early, train with the NSW U17 squad just to give myself the best chance and then driving home that night. Six hours travel.

“Those things stick out to me. I was lucky that my Sydney club side, St George, impressed its historic culture on me, same at the Blues, we are so lucky to call ourselves NSW cricketers and own one of those baggy blues we get to carry around.”

Copeland’s Test career was short and sweet, Australian cricket had no time for men of such pace. He’s easy with that now.

“It was never said to me (about bowling faster) as such, but I am aware that what I do was not conducive to being the next superstar of Australian cricket, it is what it is, the disappointing thing for me is that what I do has been successful at any level I played at. Moving the ball late and laterally with skills not all fast bowlers have is essential to a good bowling attack,” he said. “It’s not all about pace.”

Copeland accepts that with Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood coming through he was going to be lost in the rush for Test places.

“I often get asked when I am doing speaking gigs about how I felt about being dropped, but I am not naive, the Australian cricket team is the elite of the elite, to have been given a baggy green and to be considered among the best 11 cricketers and to go on and win a series on the subcontinent, I’m incredibly thankful, what an amazing time,” he said.