Australia’s latest entrance in their ever bludgeoning pace battery is one Jason Behrendorff.
The 27-year-old showed why he is one to keep an eye on after wreaking havoc in only his second international appearance for his country.
The left-arm pacer ripped through the famed Indian top-order in the second T20I between the two sides at Guwahati on Tuesday to help the visitors level the three-match series at 1-1 courtesy of an eight-wicket victory.
Behrendorff announced himself on the international stage in style after his sensational and match-winning spell of 4-21 off his four overs.
He picked up the premium wickets of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey and Shikhar Dhawan in a fearsome display of fast and accurate bowling to extinguish India’s hopes early into the match.
Behrendorff in the process became the first bowler to dismiss India skipper Kohli for a duck in a T20I match when he caught the dashing right-handed batsman off his own bowling in the first over of the match.
After having dealt with the Indian batting so deftly in the match, the pacer was in even better form at the post match press conference where he was told of his comparison to WWE wrestler John Cena.
“He’s a fair bit bigger than I am,” the Aussie shot back immediately as he struggled to contain his laughter.
Fair to say @JDorff5 didn’t expect this question after his four-wicket haul against India! pic.twitter.com/cwTbkx0Kfj
— cricket.com.au (@CricketAus) October 10, 2017
The New South Wales born man currently plays his domestic cricket for Western Australia while turning up for Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League (BBL). He was over the moon after his efforts on Tuesday bore him four top class wickets after being smashes for two boundaries in his first three deliveries by Sharma.
“I was really happy with that,” the pacer said about his comeback.
“Few ones that I got hit to the boundary probably weren’t where I needed to be bowling. But then to get the ball up there, swinging the ball, hit guys on the pads and nick blokes off: those are the things we talk about in our meetings. To get the balls in those areas especially up front.”
While he might intimidate most batsmen by his sheer accuracy and swing, Behrendorff though revealed a much gentler side to his persona in the post match presser.
“You don’t have to be mean and nasty all the time,” he said. “Generally I’d try and let my skills and the ball do the work and let that do the talking for me instead of getting into a verbal battle or anything like that. Some guys enjoy that and that’s what fires them up and gets them going. But that’s not really my style.”
The Aussie is definitely making the ball do all the talking for him in his maiden international series so far and all eyes will be on him at Hyderabad on Friday when the two sides meet for the deciding T20I.
Whether Behrendorff can repeat his Guwahati performance remains to be seen, but for now Australia have another gem of a pacer on their hands.
