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A playing commitment on Monday night with Melbourne Renegades isn’t the only thing delaying Alex Doolan’s journey to Sydney to join Australia’s Test squad.
The uncapped 28-year-old says he’ll have to make a mercy dash back to Tasmania to collect his red-ball gear before heading to the SCG nets to link up with Michael Clarke’s side.
“I play tonight against the Brisbane Heat for the Renegades (in a T20 game),” Doolan told reporters on Monday.
“Then I fly home and collect all my gear, my bats and pads to head to Sydney after that and get back into the red-ball stuff and making sure I’m sharp for that.
“I don’t have any of my white pads or my red-ball bats with me.
“I need to go home, without trusting my fiancee to get everything ready for me. It’s best that I go home and collect it myself.”
Doolan impressed good judges including Clarke with his century for Tasmania against NSW earlier this summer.
The dual Sheffield Shield winner says he’s learnt a lot from batting alongside former Test skipper Ricky Ponting.
He even shares his fellow Launceston product’s interest in the fine details of bats.
Doolan says he saves his best bats for red-ball cricket.
“It’s a bit silly,” he said.
“For T20 I use the bats I probably wouldn’t use for four-day cricket, just because they get bashed up so quickly and break and I want to prolong the life of my really good ones.”
Doolan said Ponting and state coach Tim Coyle had challenged him over the past two seasons to aim higher.
“Ricky was a huge influence on me,” Doolan said.
“He just tried to instil the belief in me and made sure I believed I was a good player and that I could do it and not be satisfied with anything I’d done.”
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