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Follow UsA bit of trivia to kick this off.
Australia’s opening pair for the Perth Test against India will be Nathan McSweeney and Usman Khawaja.
Their paths have been in the opposite direction. Ironically, the 25-year-old moved from Queensland to South Australia while Khawaja moved from New South Wales to Queensland.
Since making his first-class debut in 2018, the then-long-haired McSweeney has risen up the ranks ever-so proficiently to walk out alongside Khawaja in the most important series of the Australian summer.
But the 25-year-old wasn’t even good enough for South Australia 18 months ago, and after scores of 32, 22, 10, 1, it was quite likely that he would be chucked out of the system.
After all, this was a player who could only score a total of 126 runs in his entire first-class career with Queensland, averaging 14. Not only was his career on the line, but he also had the biggest test of his life, to combat Chris Tremain and Trent Copeland, two bowlers who were at the pinnacle of their first-class careers.
One bad move could have perhaps become another ‘what if’ tale in Australian cricket.
Then, it clicked. With South Australia’s backs against the wall (89/3), chasing 328, McSweeney formed a ridiculous partnership alongside Jake Lehmann to take them to a sensational win. It not only broke South Australia’s losing streak, but also started the resurgence story of a young McSweeney.
“As batters, we don’t really feel like we are not good enough till you get a score. I went there and made 99*, it was the first win in 17 games. I felt like I could do this and make runs. It was just about taking as much learnings as possible,” McSweeney told The Unplayable Podcast.
From averaging 17.5, McSweeney went on to become Australia’s ‘chosen one’, smashing all batting records with 2021 runs over the next 26 first-class games, with a 33.3% conversion rate in Shield cricket.
McSweeney wasn’t just scoring runs; he was scoring them ‘gritty’. Be it Jackson Bird, Michael Neser, Mitchell Swepson, Beau Webster, or a seasoned veteran like Tremain, they were all put to the mat.
Then, the 23-year-old also incredibly captained Brisbane Heat during the 2023/24 Big Bash League campaign, where, incidentally, he replaced Khawaja as the skipper. The growth of McSweeney was clearly evident, and the selectors just merely took a ‘leap of faith’.
The way he captained and marshalled the troops at the BBL level caught the attention of Ryan Harris, who was then South Australia's interim coach. He hailed him as a ‘natural leader’, and it was only natural that McSweeney was going to be the face of South Australia, something that was missing since Travis Head started donning the Baggy Green on a regular basis.
“Now, being one of South Australia’s important players, I feel like being captain adds an extra layer of importance so I can put extra runs on the board for my team. I want to play for Australia, but it doesn’t stop me from preparing my best. Unfortunately, we don’t have control over the selection, all I can do is prepare,” McSweeney added in the same interview.
All of this ultimately took him to Australia A, but that one final test remained. It was a bat-off, something that hadn’t happened in Australian cricket for some time now. The bat-off wasn’t even on level ground.
There was Marcus Harris, Sam Konstas, Cameron Bancroft and McSweeney.
Find the odd man out.
In between the three of them, they have faced 42,776 deliveries as an opener. McSweeney faced zero. Not only was it odd, but in a few ways more than one, it also set a weird precedence for future Australian cricketers.
20,000 and more runs were ignored for a middle-order batter, who has only scored 2252 runs. But in the span of three innings against a strong India A bowling unit, the right-hander proved why the selectors were on the dot and all the others looking at his numbers were wrong.
“George [Bailey] rang me and said that I will be opening this game. For me, nothing changes. I do similar prep, batting at No.3 for South Australia. I will do the same prep and go ahead working about things,” McSweeney looked back at his promotion to opening.
His scores might have been just 88*, 14, and 25, but what impressed the selectors the most was how determined and calm he was at the crease, something that has been noted across the different age groups.
McSweeney was part of the eight-player squad sent to Chennai as part of the annual MRF Pace Academy trip in 2023. This exposure to quality spin and spinners could set him up nicely against India. The 25-year-old’s quality is such that even New South Wales’ U-19 coach and former Australian U-19 coach Anthony Clark was left impressed.
“Nathan McSweeney is an excellent player, and I respect him highly, not only as a player but also as a leader,” Clark told Cricket.com in an exclusive conversation.
“McSweeney was on that MRF [Academy] trip as well. I’ve known him for quite a while now, and he’s a very good player and his record at the first-class level in Australia has been excellent, particularly over the last couple of years. He’s really strong-willed, and he’s a good individual,” he added.
Soft-spoken outside the field and quite a timid being, McSweeney’s ability to be strong-willed out there, with a dogged determination, has earned him quite an appreciation from all quarters. Even when McSweeney’s selection came at the cost of Clark’s pupil Konstas, all that the coach had to say was that he had all the time in the world for the 25-year-old.
“McSweeney has leadership capabilities as well. He’s someone that I have a lot of time for. If he didn’t get picked now, at some stage, they will have to pick him because he’s going to keep scoring runs,” Clark added.
Instead of facing Mitchell Starc on full-throttle as he did back in 2017 when he was a net-batter, the South Australian would be facing Jasprit Bumrah, a totally different monster.
Rest assured, though, life has come quite a full circle for McSweeney, who began his cricketing career around Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne (on whom he has modelled his cricket). He will be reunited with the two Queenslanders but now grinning ear-to-ear, donning that iconic Baggy Green over his neatly cropped hair.
Australia are taking on the odds; it is now for McSweeney to convert em’ odds in his favour.
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