Sometimes in this life you catch a glimmer in a cricketer and, for whatever reason, like what you see. I first took note of Jake Weatherald almost a decade ago when he peeled off a couple of half-centuries in the Sheffield Shield final. Then I turned on the Big Bash League one night and saw him make a sparkling 50 in a Big Bash League game for the Strikers against the Heat, noting the pleasing simplicity of his technique and his crisp contact with the ball.
Like a lot of people I watched him make a brilliant 115 in the 2018 Big Bash League final in which my mate Dan Christian was playing; like rather fewer people a year later I saw him get 150 at Adelaide Oval against a good Tasmanian attack in tough conditions, and chatted about him to Chris Rogers, then at the Centre of Excellence, who’s forgotten more about batting than most of us will ever know. His running between wickets could be a bit skittish, but he clearly had a ton of raw talent, scored all round the wicket, and was a good athlete and catcher.
Anyway, around this time Pete and I were then filling some airtime on Channel 7, and were asked on the spur of the moment about the Ashes squad, so I ventured Weatherald’s name as a roughie. For this I was, probably quite rightly, ridiculed, his first-class average at the time at the time being 32.6 - although, in my defence, Marnus Labuschagne was picked for the same tour with a first-class average of 32.3.
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