Carey building towards another World Cup starring role

Alex Carey’s successful shift down the order in the BBL is further evidence of his enormous improvement as a batsman and huge potential value for Australia in all three formats.

Due to his promising Australian football career, the 28-year-old wicketkeeper was a latecomer to professional cricket, playing his first full season for South Australia only three summers ago.

His exposure to international cricket – Carey debuted for Australia in January 2018 – has prompted massive development in his batting.

In Carey’s last ten first-class matches, he has made 675 runs at 52, and in his past 20 T20 matches he has averaged 36 at a terrific scoring rate of 8.5 runs per over.

(AAP Image/David Mariuz)

Most notably, however, he has quickly become one of the most valuable players in the Australian ODI team, playing a Mike Hussey-like finishing role in the middle order.

In his last 20 ODIs Carey has creamed 558 runs at 51 with a swift strike rate of 101. Carey was so brilliant at this year’s World Cup, where he made 375 runs at 62 and played a clutch of key innings, that he was named in the ICC team of the tournament.

His next step is to justify his continued selection in Australia’s T20 side, having averaged only 14 with the bat from his 13 innings to date.

It should be noted Carey was a particular latecomer to the shortest format – only two years ago he had a grand total of one T20 match to his name.

Since then he has built an impressive T20 record, averaging 32 at a solid scoring rate of 8.1 runs per over. The only drawback, from the perspective of the Aussie T20 team, is that many of Carey’s runs have been made at the top of the order in the BBL and Australia are already stacked with top-three options.

What Australia lack in T20s are middle-order specialists. Carey has already made this transition with huge success in one-day cricket, changing from a slow-scoring opener for South Australia to a highly versatile number six or seven in ODIs. Now Australia need him to replicate that in T20s. It would be interesting to know whether Cricket Australia had any say in his his BBL move from opening for Adelaide last summer to now batting at number four.

Or perhaps the Strikers were influenced by his starring role for Sussex in the Vitality Blast in England this winter. Batting at number four in that tournament, Carey made 264 runs at 38 with a scoring rate of 9.2 runs per over as he adapted brilliantly to that new role.

The left-hander has maintained that momentum this BBL season with a pair of contrasting knocks for Adelaide. In their first match he came to the crease with the Strikers struggling at 2-8 and steered them out of trouble with a calm 45 from 40 balls. Then against the Perth Scorchers, Carey came out with his side on top at 2-89 from 9.3 overs and went ballistic, caning 55 from 24 balls.

It is this versatility that makes Carey such an appealing white-ball batsman. Many limited-overs stroke-makers have limited gears to their batting – they can blast but not build or they can build but not blast. Carey has proven in ODIs that he can perform either role and he is now getting the same opportunity in T20s.

While there is continual speculation about Carey pressing for the position of Test keeper Tim Paine, I don’t see the Australian skipper stepping down or being dropped before the start of the next summer. That season will kick off with the T20 World Cup hosted in Australia, so for all the focus on Carey’s Test prospects, it is in T20s that he looks set to have the biggest role for Australia in the next 11 months.

Carey has already stepped up massively for Australia in his first World Cup. If he can do the same in his second, it will hugely boost Australia’s chances of lifting their first T20 World Cup trophy.