Molly Strano pushes her case for national selection

Molly Strano, the right-arm off-spinner from Victoria, has been in news for all the right reasons. First she had a memorable outing with Melbourne Renegades in the recently concluded Women's Big Bash League, where she finished as the highest wicket-taker with 24 scalps in the 15 games. Secondly, she had a fruitful outing for Australia A against India A where, she managed to pick seven wickets, which included 3-26 in the decider of the three match one day series that enabled Australia A clinch the series 2-1.

Strano proved to be a thorn in the flesh of teenage prodigy Shafali Verma as she managed to pick her up in all the three matches. Verma's heroics of 124 powered India A to victory in the first match, but in the remaining two games Strano dismissed her for 46 and 0 respectively.

Strano last played for Australia in the 2017 Ashes campaign down under. The off-spinner though holds the record for registering the best figures by an Australian in T20Is - a 5-10 against New Zealand in 2017.

Speaking to media ahead of the T20 series against India A, Strano was adamant she would not be getting her hopes up about an international recall. 

"I don’t know, I’m a spinner who doesn’t spin it so if they need one of those, I’m available," Strano said. 

"It’s probably a long shot but yeah, as I said, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my year with the Renegades and hopefully we can come back next year and go one better."

Australia are not short of talent pool, when it comes to spinners. They have Jess Jonassen, Ashleigh Gardner, Georgia Wareham and Sophie Molineux. All four are handy lower-order batters, too, which makes Strano's case even more difficult as she is not as good a lower-order batter as the other four.

Strano, though could still make it to the team due to her exceptional run of form in the recent matches. The-27-year-old could press her case more with the three-match T20 series starting on Thursday (December 19) in Gold Coast.

During the WBBL season, Matthew Mott, Australia's head coach, had told cricket.com.au that she was a tad unlucky to have missed out having a longer international career. 

"Molly continually comes up in selection (discussions)," Mott said.

"She delivers all the time, she played well when she played for Australia and she probably is one of the unlucky cricketers, in that she’s come along in a generation where there’s a number of similar bowlers and she’s competing with the likes of Ash Gardner and Jess Jonassen.

"It’s difficult, she’s definitely capable of playing at international level … but she’s in the unfortunate position where she’s competing with players who have a bit more in the batting department than her."