The rise of Alana King: From fringe Victorian to lead leg-spinner on historic Indian tour
It wasn’t that long ago Alana King was struggling to get a bowl for Victoria. Now she’s about to embark on the ultimate test for a spinner as Australia tours India. Here’s how she went from fourth-choice to an international star.
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Alana King took the ultimate punt on herself.
She packed her bags and headed west without a guarantee beyond having an aunty to live with.
The opportunity to leave Victoria — where she was stuck in the queue behind Australian spinners Molly Strano, Georgia Wareham and Sophie Molineux — had come about by chance.
King’s agent Cameron Richardson fielded a call about another of his clients who WA were hoping to lure west.
“I said to (WA coach) Becky Grundy ‘what about Alana King?’ and she went stone motherless silent,” Richardson said.
“She said, ‘is she available?’
“It’s never been the greatest place for spin bowling but (I said) if you’ve got 10 overs for her in a WNCL game I reckon I’ve got a player for you.”
King had taken 53 wickets in two seasons for her grade side Prahran, where she was a focal point of the bowling attack.
“I have seen her leg-spinner bowled in Premier Cricket and she was just lights out when she bowled it,” her Prahran coach Carl Sandri said.
“Even against the best players in Premier Cricket or her state teammates, a lot of the time she’d just make opposition look silly. I knew she had that ability.
“No one could really get to her and she wouldn’t have had a bad day in the 4-5 years that I worked with her at Prahran. She was just a banker.”
But King averaged less than five overs a game in the 2019-20 WNCL campaign with Victoria and finished a season which drained her confidence with two wickets and a bowling average of 87.
“They had six Australian bowlers,” King said.
“I just knew Meg (Lanning) had to go to them first before she had to dive into her other bowlers.
“I knew nothing was guaranteed over in the west. I still had to prove myself. I’m glad that I did because it’s (been) a great freshen up for me.”
Western Australia has long been regarded as a graveyard for spin bowlers.
Yet King, sensing an opportunity to carve out a niche for herself in a team without a wrist spinner, jumped at the opportunity.
“In that first season (in WA) I bowled a lot in games and that just opened my eyes to different situations in games and scenarios,” she said.
“I learned a lot about myself away from cricket as well as in cricket as well and just focused on my craft. That was the No. 1 thing I really wanted to do.
“Just the love of the game kept coming back and I just wanted to keep getting better and better.
“But I didn’t look too far ahead. I was just primarily focused on doing well for WA and whatever happened after that would be great.”
Richardson adds: “She obviously knew a few of the WA girls from playing against them but she didn’t know anyone closely.
“It was a really brave move. She was 23 at the time, still living at home with mum and dad.
“Another cricket person said to me, that I respect a lot …’I reckon it will be the best move for her’.”
So it has proven.
It wasn’t long before the enthusiasm and exuberance which has made King a fan favourite in the WBBL returned.
The next summer, her last wearing the green of Melbourne, she bowled the Stars into the WBBL decider with 3-16 against Perth Scorchers in a semi-final.
First wicket in international cricket for Alana King! #OhWhatAFeeling#Ashes | @Toyota_Auspic.twitter.com/ILREGRCxZd
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) January 20, 2022
She finished the WBBL tournament with 16 wickets from 12 games and a growing reputation as a player with international traits.
Within 18 months of that final, King had made her T20, one-day and Test debuts for Australia.
“I was playing for WA at the time (when I left the Stars),” King said.
“It was my first season over there. It was just a decision to try to base all my cricket in one area so I get a bit of consistency, not just with the environment but with coaches as well.
“It was hard to turn down the opportunity to work with Shelley Nitschke at the Scorchers. Now she’s my head coach for Australia.
“It’s an incredible time and to reflect on what’s happened in the last three and a half years has been absolutely pivotal for my career. Haven’t looked back since.
“I’ve loved the west and the west is home for me for the foreseeable future.”
King has since established herself as a mainstay of the Australian team, taken three wickets in an ODI World Cup final, won a Commonwealth Games gold medal and bowled the decisive overs in a Women’s Ashes series.
Now the ultimate frontier for a spin bowler, India, awaits.
“I think a lot of us look back and think we would have liked to have made more of our skills than we may have done,” Sandri said.
“In any industry you do need your luck and she’s grabbed a little bit of that. But she deserved it. From that, she’s absolutely changed her life. Hopefully (there’s) more successful life-changing years for her moving forward.”
From fourth-choice spinner for Victoria, King found herself with the responsibility of bowling Australia to victory in a match regarded as the greatest women’s Test ever.
It was January, 2022, and Lanning — her former Victorian WNCL captain — entrusted King with the final over on a pulsating final day in Canberra.
England had raced to 3-218 at close to a run a ball and was eyeing an improbable victory after being set 257 in 48 overs.
The equation had been whittled down to 24 from 28 balls when King had Sophia Dunkley caught by Beth Mooney.
By the end of the 46th over, when she had Charlie Dean caught skying a ball to Alyssa Healy, an Australian win looked possible.
Kate Cross and Sophie Ecclestone would deny the Australians, but the responsibility thrust upon King — and her poise under fire — underlined how far she had come in a matter of years.
She was doing what she did weekly for Prahran, just on a much grander scale.
“I absolutely love bowling and I’ll bowl as much as I can,” she said.
“Because I want to keep creating opportunities for my team. They might come or they might create opportunities down the other end which is all a part of bowling and spin bowling.”
Scorchers list manager Kade Harvey said King’s rapid ascension to the Australian side had provided an important example to other fringe domestic players.
“I think it shows that the states have got a really important role to play in providing opportunities for players to play for their country,” Harvey said.
“Even though Alana had left Victoria to come to Perth to play WNCL cricket, it’s actually given her the opportunity to play for Australia and do such a great job. That’s a really important role that we play.
“Not only developing our own talent, but in terms of giving opportunities to players who perhaps aren’t getting it somewhere else where perhaps a change, fresh scenery, might be the spark. She’s gone on to become a wonderful international player.”
Cricket fans young and old can’t help but be captivated by leg-spinners.
It is a discipline which requires courage, immense skill and an unquenchable work ethic to perfect.
King has those attributes in spades.
But more than anything it has been her engaging personality which has endeared her most to WBBL fans across the country.
At her junior club Oakleigh in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, there’s even a team named in her honour.
“We name our junior teams after past players so this was a great opportunity to call it after Alana,” coach Hish Fernando said.
“The original name that was put forward was the Kings, because they name everyone after surnames, but we just didn’t think it was appropriate to have an under-12s girls team (called that).
“So we decided on the Alanas. Sounds like the Matildas. That stuck.”
The Alanas are a team from @OakleighCC named after Alana King, and they even have a chant! How good 🙌 pic.twitter.com/sOCu8zX4KZ
— 7Cricket (@7Cricket) November 12, 2023
The Alanas twice had the opportunity to rub shoulders with their idol — and show off their personalised chant — when the Scorchers played in Melbourne this season.
“At the young age the girls are, it’s just about getting it up the other end of the pitch,” Fernando said.
“Line and length is their focus. But certainly a lot of the girls have asked, ‘what’s she doing with the ball, because it’s quite incredible?’ “The concept of spin has been new to them.
“They don’t understand the magnitude of players like Shane Warne who are probably a little bit before their time. This is the under-12s team, don’t forget.
“But they are seeing Alana. For them, this is the first leg-spinner they are seeing and they love it. They love the fact that she’s confusing batters and they want to do that.”
In the same way Warne’s brilliance paved the way for a generation of wrist spinners, King has attracted her own wave of disciples.
“Even when they go to the games, they’re actually watching Alana and how she walks in with the ball, how she does some of those basics,” Fernando said.
“They get to watch a game, learn and try to be like Alana one day.”
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