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When Jon Holland walks out with the Australian Test team on Thursday to tackle Sri Lanka, he will be making his international debut seven years late.
The 29-year-old has long been earmarked for national duty, but held back by injuries.
In 2009, the left-arm spinner was 22 years old and only 12 months into his professional cricket career when he was called into the Australian ODI squad for their seven-match tour of India.
Given the spin-friendly nature of Indian pitches, and the fact Nathan Hauritz was the only other specialist tweaker in this group, Holland was expected to play at least one game.
Instead, he sat on the sidelines as the back-to-back-to-back World Cup champions cruised to a 4-2 series victory, with rain washing out the seventh match, in which he was scheduled to play.
Regardless, Holland was not expected to have to wait long for his chance at international cricket as arguably the most talented young spinner in the country.
But things did not go to plan. For the past seven years he has been buffeted by injuries, a rather unusual problem for a finger spinner in their 20s.
Four years ago, Holland again looked on the fast track to international selection. Australian chairman of selectors John Inverarity labelled him one of the best two spinners in the nation, alongside incumbent Test tweaker Nathan Lyon.
Just months earlier, Holland had starred for Australia A on their 2012 tour of England. He was the squad’s leading wicket taker, despite being part of a star-studded bowling unit which included Lyon, Mitchell Johnson, Mitchell Starc, Jackson Bird and Nathan Coulter-Nile.
Lyon was yet to bed down his spot in the Test line-up and Inverarity’s generous praise of Holland suggested he was on the verge of usurping the off spinner. Yet, just a week after Inverarity made those comments, Holland’s career again was derailed by injury.
He hurt his bowling shoulder while fielding in a club game and required a reconstruction, which ruled him out of the whole Australian summer.
By the time Holland returned, for the 2013-14 season, Pakistan-born leggie Fawad Ahmed had become Victoria’s number one red-ball spinner. Ahmed had debuted for the Bushrangers while Holland was injured, taking 16 wickets from his three Shield games in the 2012-13 season.
Since coming back from that shoulder reconstruction, Holland’s Shield appearances have been limited, partly due to the presence of Ahmed and partly because of further injuries. But he proved a point when he got a rare chance to bowl alongside Ahmed in the Shield final four months ago.
Holland comprehensively outperformed his teammate, showcasing the deceptive flight and great control that long had excited the national selectors, as he helped bowl Victoria to victory with eight wickets. What made that haul even more significant was that it contained no cheapies – each wicket was of a top-seven batsman.
That performance helped him leapfrog Ahmed, who was Australia’s back-up spinner on the Test tours of England and the Caribbean last year. It was also stirring enough for Holland to overcome the hype that has steadily built around 24-year-old leggie Adam Zampa.
Holland looks to be a good selection for Galle, where the spin-friendly surface rewards tweakers who can land the ball on the same spot over and over. This is why ultra-accurate Sri Lankan tweaker Rangana Herath has been so successful, with 78 wickets from his 14 Tests at the ground. Galle offers enough help to the slow bowlers that they need not get huge revs on the ball to be effective.
Holland’s biggest strength is his consistency. Similar to Herath and the injured Steve O’Keefe, he does not have a bag of tricks or turn the ball at right angles. Rather, he looks to create pressure by offering very few release balls. This frugality bore fruit in the Shield final, as Holland delivered twice as many maidens as any other bowler in the match.
Australia will hope that he can offer them the control that they lacked in the second half of Sri Lanka’s second innings at Kandy, when the hosts ran away with the match.
It’s been a long time coming, but finally Holland’s chance has arrived.