“I hadn’t really seen much of him at all up until the IPL and seeing what he did there is something that I haven’t seen for a long time,” Watson said. “For a young guy coming in and just dominating and just hitting the ball like I haven’t really seen in the past. So you just find a way.
“It’s hard with Australia being the defending champions of the T20 World Cup. But with someone like that, the power that he has and the composure as well under pressure situations is something that’s very, very rare.”
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“I think it’s important that that time will come for Tim,” Finch said. “He’s such a valuable asset. Guys with that much power who can bowl a few overs, are good in the field, they will slot into a lot of T20 sides. So I think there’s going to be opportunities there no doubt, especially with the amount of cricket that’s going to be played over the next sort of three months until that World Cup starts.”
Australia do not play another T20I until September when they will make a brief 10-day tour to India for a three-match series. Those games are wedged between six home ODIs against Zimbabwe and New Zealand, starting in late August, and five home T20Is against West Indies and England in early October, prior to the World Cup warm-up games ahead of the tournament.
David’s chance might come on that trip to India as Australia’s only three-format batters, David Warner and Steven Smith, could well be rested given the India series will be played in foreign conditions to the World Cup and both will have huge Test workloads following the tournament.
World Cup squads will probably need to be named by mid-September, so Australia may need to make an early call, although there is often room for late changes. The other quirk around David is that he is on the edge of the Australian system without a state contract and has been confirmed in the CPL for St Lucia Kings, with that tournament running through September, although it is likely he would forgo that deal should an international call-up emerge.
David did have a rookie contract with Western Australia for one season in 2018-19 and played one Marsh Cup game for Tasmania last season without a contract. Watson has publicly raised some valid questions about the potential negative flow-on effects of picking a player like David for Australia from outside the state system.
But Cricket Australia’s high-performance team does not see it as an issue at the moment and is looking at ways to contract T20 specialists in the future without forcing them to forgo franchise cricket to remain tied to the domestic system. David is the latest case study but Dan Christian and AJ Tye have both been picked for Australia’s T20I side in recent years without a state contract.
Alex Malcolm is an Associate Editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo