The time has come for Ashton Turner

Ashton Agar is a fine cricketer. He has become a wonderful white ball cricketer for franchise and country for some time now. He provides a strong all round option as a second spinner who can tie up an end in the whites as well.

He’s part of a generation of cricketers form the West who have grown into a formidable group and returned the state to a position of power in domestic cricket.

There’s another Ashton from the west though, he’s is a tall finger spinning all-rounder as well. His time may well have finally come, his name is Ashton Turner.

Turner is a member of the group of players that has put Western Australian cricket back at the forefront of the game in this country.

Coming into the squad just as the Justin Langer reign was getting going for WA and the Scorchers, Turner has grown from a self-confessed off spinning slogger to a cricketer of the most wonderful acumen.

Turner is the kind of cricketer that Langer creates; tough, calm, controlled and full of self-belief. Unless of course they think that they are above being told what to do or being held accountable, that article has however already being written.

BBL 12 showed Turner to be a cricketer at the height of his powers. Not only as a cricketer but as a leader of men. Let’s take his efforts as an individual first. It wasn’t so much the number of runs that he made but the circumstances in which he made them.

The two finals being a great example of this. In each of the final round contests he found himself coming in at precarious times.

Each occasion saw him calmly think his way through the problem, he saw the full journey rather than just the scoreboard at the time and played accordingly. It’s hard not to think that without the efforts of their skipper the Scorchers would be hard pressed to have gone back to back.

Now let’s consider his efforts as a leader. Not only did he lead by example, as his batting efforts showed, but he also led with a clear mind during several high pressure contests. His rotation of his bowlers through the competition was just first class.

One can only wonder about his input into bowling plans, particularly the one that was seemingly targeted at the strong Hurricanes line up to secure a strong win just when the whips were starting to crack in the season. It was during this contest that his use of his young firebrand in Lance Morris was a sign of a strong cricket mind.

With Australia’s T20 side hopefully going into a period of transition in the coming years the door should be open for Turner to return, not only as a member of the team but as the captain. Australian cricket has missed the boat of international T20 cricket and now is the time for them to catch up.

Australia needs to start picking a team of T20 players who have succeed in the BBL and leagues around the world. The selection of Tim David in the last World Cup was a step in the right direction and the promotion of Turner to front of the line would be another one.

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Ashton Turner of Australia bats (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Strong captaincy is important in all forms of the game but most important in the modern T20 game. T20 has become this fast-paced series of contest after contest.

As the boffins say, it has grown into a game where each ball is almost considered individually, being able to navigate such a journey on field can often be the difference between success and failure in the shortest form.

Aaron Finch’s ability to navigate his team through that journey was a big reason as to why they won in 2021.

With Turner brining the same kind of calm control to the wheel in the next one in 2024, who knows where the Aussies might end up.

The time has come for Australian cricket to bring the next generation on. The time has come for Australian cricket to catch up with the rest of the world and build their T20 team from their T20 competition. The Perth Scorchers have long been the strongest franchise in the BBL and there is a reason for that.

Their leaders have provided strong planning, calm control and a never failing belief in themselves and their squad, an approach which has brough five out of twelve BBL flags.

The time has come for Australian cricket to follow their lead, the time has come for Ashton Turner.