Most nights, while you sleep, an emerging Aussie cricket star – with a dodgy haircut – is quietly continuing his rise to the top.
He’s not earning squillions and smashing it everywhere in front of huge crowds in the frenetic Indian Premier League.
No, he’s in far more modest surrounds: in the midlands of England, in Nottingham. He’s in his whites, playing red-ball cricket, no doubt freezing cold as the England ‘spring’ creeps in.
Yep – he’s playing in the County Championship. Formally established in 1890 (but the first ever match between counties was in 1709(!)), this most unsexy of competitions – England’s equivalent of the Sheffield Shield – keeps marching on, in front of a dwindling but devoted cluster of fans, many of whom would happily talk to you for hours about their favourite match from 1959.
So who is this cricketer?
His name is Fergus O’Neill, he’s 24, from Victoria and has a haircut that makes him look like Dustin Martin . . . and if it were up to me, I’d have him in the Aussie Test side damned soon.
If you watched him play for a few minutes you might wonder why I am so excited.
He’s a fast bowler but he is not especially fast. He’s accurate, he moves it a bit, he pitches it up and attacks the stumps. But in all honesty, at first glance he looks almost mediocre.
But his record is anything but mediocre. Try these numbers on for size.
In the season just gone – a season in which he was named Sheffield Shield player of the year – he took 45 red-ball wickets, at an average of 20.55. If bowling averages are not your thing, the lower the better: anything under 25 is elite and anything below 21 is pretty much as good as it gets.
Last season was not a one-off either: O’Neill’s career average is 20.03.
Indeed, his average is on the cusp of dipping below 20 – something you normally only associate with bowlers from the 1890s, when pitches were lumpy, treacherous strips of wet chaos.
To be producing figures like this on modern, manicured, flat, consistent decks is quite something. No wonder Notts fans were delighted when he signed for them.
So how is he successful? The short answer is ‘accuracy’. In an era when raw pace is fetishised (when Boof Lehmann was Aussie coach he was not interested in anyone who didn’t exceed 140 km/hr), the value of accuracy is often underplayed.
But when up against top batters, raw speed takes you only so far – directly to the boundary if you spray it everywhere. O’Neill is consistent and sharpish and wobbles the ball just enough in either direction. He might not turn heads straightaway but he is a batter’s nightmare.
Pleasingly, he has begun brilliantly in England: 8 wickets in his first game and 3 more so far in his second. And his bowling average in England so far?
18.27 – sounds more like a year than an average! Still early days of course – but very encouraging.
Oh and did I mention, he can bat too? His career batting average is 20.80 – almost identical to Mitchell Starc’s. Very handy indeed.
It will not be easy to crack into the Aussie side – I mean, even the magnificent Scott Boland finds it hard to get a Test match. But all O’Neill can do is keep taking wickets.
So, if you want a gentle thrill to start each day as the weather gets colder, do what I do: crack open Cricinfo when you wake up, check the Nottinghamshire scores and see how Fergus O’Neill got on!
