Tasmania have a full pace battery to choose from after being hampered by injuries last season
Towering Tasmanian quick Billy Stanlake has put another season of injury setbacks behind him and is pushing for a return to regular red-ball cricket when the Sheffield Shield season kicks off next month.
Stanlake has played just one first-class match in the past four years following a string of back, hamstring and shoulder injuries, but having terrorised the Tigers’ batters in the nets through pre-season, the 204cm right-armer is back at full flight to start the domestic summer.
It’s welcome news for men’s head coach Jeff Vaughan after Tasmania’s fast bowling depth was tested last summer, slipping from a Shield final appearance the season prior to fifth in both the four-day and 50-over competitions.
Stanlake was one of those who finished the summer in the rehab group after a promising Big Bash campaign for eventual champions Hobart Hurricanes was cut short when he fractured his bowling shoulder diving to take a catch in the outfield.
But with a solid block of winter cricket behind him, which included a return to Australia A colours for the first time in seven years, the 30-year-old looms as a key piece in both Tasmania and the Hurricanes’ bowling line-ups this season.
“The way he’s bowling in the nets (has been) quite scary (for) some of our batters,” Vaughan told cricket.com.au.
“We can’t speak highly enough of Bill and how he’s been able to manage himself.
“He’s had almost a full winter of cricket behind him with the Australia A tour up in the Top End; he went to Guyana, and he’s been to Darwin with (the Hurricanes).
“He’s ready and really excited by his early start of the summer for him in both white- and red-ball cricket.”
Stanlake claimed a pair of four-wicket hauls in his most recent Sheffield Shield match against his former state at the Gabba in February 2024, which was also his first-class debut for Tasmania after moving from Queensland in the winter of 2022.
That was during arduous recovery from a back stress fracture first detected during a county cricket stint the previous year.
But the express quick appears to have turned a corner last summer following years of recurring back troubles, playing seven of Hobart’s 11 KFC BBL|14 matches before his shoulder mishap.
He returned to action for Australia A in Darwin in July, taking three wickets in the opening one-day game against Sri Lanka A before a run of matches with the Hurricanes in Guyana’s Global Super League and Northern Territory’s Top End T20 series.
Also returning to action in the Top End tournament was emerging quick Iain Carlisle, who took a pair of three-wicket hauls in Tasmania’s 2023-24 Shield final appearance before missing all of last summer with back stress fractures.
Tasmania strengthened their pace stocks during the off-season after they were hampered by injuries last season.
Veteran seamer Jackosn Bird has returned to the Tigers for family reasons after two summers with NSW and they’ve added another towering fast bowler in 210cm left-armer Marcus Bean, who played two matches for the Hurricanes last season after being recruited from Queensland.
“We were quite light on with our fast bowlers through the summer last year and had to manage some injuries and some long-term injuries,” Vaughan said.
“At the moment … we’re managing them quite well and we’ve got a reasonably deep list to pick from, which is only going to cause some long conversations in selection because now we feel like we’ve got a list of players where pretty much every player could play a lot of roles in both red- and white-ball cricket.”
Vaughan’s squad travel to Queensland next week for a pair of 50-over practice matches against the Bulls as well as a two-day hit-out before launching the men’s domestic season against NSW in the Dean Jones Trophy opener in Syndey on September 16.
