Match-winning Shield spell boosts Boland for AshesRoger VaughanAAPTue, 21 October 2025 1:21PM
Scott Boland’s withering spell for Victoria has fuelled his belief he is better equipped to cope with the highs and lows of Test cricket.
Boland showed he is on track for the first Ashes Test by taking five wickets last Friday in a match-winning Sheffield Shield spell against NSW.
The paceman had been struggling to find his groove earlier in the match, but importantly kept his head in the contest
A minor change to his run-up helped Boland find his groove and he rifled through the NSW tail.
“It’s definitely a stepping stone (for) where I want to get to,” Boland said on Tuesday.
“There are only tiny little things I need to clean up in my run-up and action. That gives me confidence if I’m not quite at my best, I can still find it during a day or during a spell.
“I want to be competing all the time. I still felt I was in the game, even though I wasn’t bowling my best stuff, which is a positive sign.”
England experienced Boland at his lethal best in the Boxing Day Test four years ago, when he won the game.
But they also had the better of him in the 2023 Ashes series and there is no doubt they will target Boland this summer.
Boland’s next Shield game will be on November 10, also against NSW at the SCG, where he will probably bowl to Steve Smith, Sam Konstas and Kurtis Patterson.
Then it’s the first Test and he admits his mind occasionally wanders to Perth.
“I don’t want to take my foot off the pedal there,” he said of the SCG match.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited by what’s coming up this summer.
Boland was at the MCG for the Melbourne Cricket Club’s announcement that it will back the National Indigenous Cricket Championships and the MCG training camp for a further three years.
Boland and Jason Gillespie are the only two Indigenous players to make the Australian men’s Test team. Gillespie was also at the announcement with son Jackson, who is in the Indigenous program.
“It’s great. There are not many better places … to come, spend a week here, using the facilities,” Boland said of the camp.
“This is a great stepping stone.”
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