Will Pucovski’s batting secret: dogs and toes

Will Pucovski revealed the secrets of his relaxed approach to batting on the eve of his expected Test debut against India

Will Pucovski has started the summer in sizzling style Picture: Getty Images

The thing you notice when Will Pucovski bats is that he makes it look so easy. Not so strange then that when he talks about batting that it sounds like a simple task.

The exciting young Victorian is due to make his Test debut against the Indians in Adelaide two weeks from now and doesn’t seem intimidated by the prospect.

“I have a pretty simple process I go through, a three or four step thing that when I do back in fully I seem to do pretty well and the runs take care of themselves a little bit,” he told SEN on Friday.

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“I wiggle my toes, I take a deep breath, I lock into my stance and then I just say ‘watch the ball and play on instinct’ that’s about it.”

Between balls he thinks about his dog. As you do when you are in the middle of a first-class match and cruising towards back-to-back double centuries – which Pucovski did in the first two Sheffield Shield games of the season.

The dog, a hairy doodley thing called Harley, appears to play a large role in the batsman’s life if his Instagram account is anything to go by.

Unless Marcus Harris comes from the back of the field and into the squad – as was suggested in The Australian on Friday – the 22-year-old will make his debut with Joe Burns in the Adelaide Test.

“We haven’t batted together heaps but that’s cricket, you end up batting with people who you don’t bat with very often,” he said in a press conference. “As long as you know how to bounce off each other and get each other going in the middle or know what each other require that’s all that matters.”

Burns and Pucovski have been getting to know each other this week in the Australia A squad in Sydney in preparation for Sunday’s game against India A. Harris, who partnered with him in Victoria and scored a double century himself, is also in the squad but will have to bat down the order in the match.

Pucovski is not too concerned about the Indian bowling being a step up from that in first-class cricket and says he’ll just wiggle his toes, watch the ball, all that stuff.

“They’re very good bowlers,” he said. “I’ve faced a lot of good bowling in first-class cricket, in the nets.

“At the end of the day I just look at it as a ball coming down at you and I have to do my best to react in the best way possible. It‘s one of those things that’s out of my control.

“I won’t put too much energy or effort into worrying about that, it’ll just be about trying to make sure I’m best prepared to react in the best way possible.

“Challenging yourself at the next level is pretty exciting in itself, I haven‘t had the opportunity to do it yet for one reason or another, and yeah it is pretty cool.

“You watch these blokes on TV, dominating around the world and sort of next think ‘that could be me facing them one day’ but yeah it could potentially become a reality.”

Pucovski has only opened for Victoria in two Shield matches but can’t see a problem with doing it on debut in a Test match

“I’ve opened quite a bit in my junior stuff, it’s certainly not foreign to me,” he said. “I just see it as another ball. It doesn’t matter if you bat three, six or 11, it’s still just a ball coming down at you. I haven’t changed too much. Batting at three you get exposed early quite often in your career anyway. I jut look at it like that.”

The first tour match will be a day game at Drummoyne Oval before both sides play a three day Pink-ball match at the SCG in preparation for the first Test.

“It can be a bit different the Pink ball,” Pucovski said. “It’s pretty cool though, it’s

pretty fun once it gets into the dusk-evening time. It‘s one of those things growing up that you never really thought would ever happen, but that’s part of Test cricket now and it’s an unbelievable atmosphere. I haven’t exactly been playing in a Pink-ball Test match with a crowd yet – but I’ve been to one or two days, Australia played New Zealand at Adelaide Oval two or three years ago and I just happen to have been in Adelaide at the time and we went down and watched an hour or two and it was an incredible atmosphere.

“So if I do get that opportunity I‘ll be pretty excited.”