Who is Cooper Connolly, Australia’s newest debutant?

On September 7 (Saturday), Western Australia’s all-rounder Cooper Connolly became the 111th player to make his T20I debut for Australia. Connolly is the latest star out of the impressive Perth Scorchers’ setup, all thanks to his three-dimensional ability. 

A solid middle-order batter and more than capable bowler, Connolly replaced pacer Xavier Bartlett. The all-rounder rose through the ranks in the famed Western Australian setup and made headlines when he smashed a 53-ball 64 against a strong West Indian bowling unit at the U-19 World Cup in 2020. 

In his short career thus far, Connolly has played 15 T20s, scoring 226 runs, averaging 28.25, and striking at 145.80. All of those appearances came for the Scorchers, including an 11-ball 25 in the 2022/23 Big Bash League final against Brisbane Heat. It is his ability to be a clutch player with the bat which has forced the Australian selectors to sit down and take notice. 

"That ability to bat from four to seven, we find it is a challenging spot to find and maintain players through that area," national selector George Bailey said.

More notably, Connolly has modelled his batting on Shaun Marsh, a bonafide Western Australian legend, with his cover drive and stance eerily similar to the yesteryear star. Even Shaun’s brother Mitchell Marsh was convinced that it was his brother Shaun batting when he saw Connolly bat for the first time up close in the nets. 

"Straightaway I thought that he looked like my brother in his stance," Marsh told cricket.com.au. "His cover drive has a lot of Shaun in it. He's a bit more free-flowing with his hands. But straightaway we knew we had a pretty talented kid."

In just the one red-ball fixture that Connolly played against Tasmania earlier this year, he showed great batting potential in the first innings, where he made a quick-fire 90 off 115 balls, with 12 fours and three sixes. 

"I think there's a lot of upside with his bowling. It's still clearly the second string at the moment but it's more than handy. We saw him bowl some really important spells for us last year. We feel he is already the support to Ash. While they do both bowl left-arm spin, I think they are very different bowlers and we have absolute faith that Coops will be able to play a role there as well,” Voges told ESPNCricinfo on Connolly’s bowling. 

While all of his headline-grabbing knocks might have come with the bat, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Connolly is quite a proven bowler. His left-arm spin has already made ripples on the Australian domestic scene, with six wickets in T20s, where he averages just 15.16. 

The left-arm spinner was also part of the select bowler that took part in the developmental camp organised in association with the MRF Pace Academy programme.

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