The bait ball lurked. After blasting Cooper Connolly on his pads with a flat ball on leg stump, Rashid Khan pulled the length back a fraction, pushed the ball faster through the air and outside off stump. He could almost imagine the batsman’s response: a cut from the crease, either feathering an edge or dragging the ball onto the stumps. But Connolly imagined the unimagined. He shifted to the back foot but, instead of going horizontal, opened up his body and clubbed him down the ground with a sweet, straight bat-swing — front foot in the air, back foot pivoting like an axis.
The hand-speed, the lucid bat-swing and the daring to take on IPL’s well-worn regulars would become hallmarks of Connolly’s match-winning 72 not out on his IPL debut. He spared none — neither Rashid nor Kagiso Rabada, nor later the reformed Prasidh Krishna. His BBL club and state coach Adam Voges has long drooled over his bat-swing. “He’s got a beautiful swing of the bat. He doesn’t need a lot of width to access certain areas of the ground,” he tells The Indian Express. Like that Rashid stroke.
Cooper Connolly spared none — neither Rashid nor Kagiso Rabada, nor later the reformed Prasidh Krishna. (Express Photo by Kamleshwar Singh)
It’s the same free-flowing bat-swing that once reminded Australia’s white-ball captain Mitchell Marsh of his elder brother Shaun. This was no coincidence — Connolly had studiously modelled his batting on the Western Australian stylist. “In my first couple of years [as a cricketer], I just kept watching him,” he says in an Instagram reel on cricket.com.au. “I was like, ‘I’m going to try this and see if it works for me,’ and it’s stuck ever since.”
He says he can impersonate Shaun with eyes shut — he wears the same shirt number, too — but he is careful to detail the differences, lest he be mistaken for a blind imitator. “My tap is more aggressive and my hands start higher. His is much lower,” he explains. Connolly’s upper body is stiffer in his stance, while Marsh senior possessed more natural grace. He also holds the bat higher.
Off the field, he shares more affinities with Shaun’s brother Mitchell — both drawn to the ocean. He surfs, he fishes, and he documents the latter with some pride on Instagram. When he’s not on the water, he’s heading to it — out to Rottnest Island, a natural reserve just offshore Perth, or cutting through the city in his Land Cruiser on the way there.
His first love was footie, but he was spared the classic Aussie kid’s dilemma when he tore his ACL and quit in his early teens. He began accompanying his father — a club cricketer and coach — to Scarborough Cricket Club on the outskirts of Perth. Perched near the boundary ropes, he would shout: “My dad’s gonna get you out!” He made his club debut alongside his father, stitched a last-wicket stand with him, and still taps into his “constructive criticism.”
The 22-year-old began as a left-arm pacer before reinventing himself as a batsman who could also bowl left-arm spin. That spin utility fast-tracked him to a Test debut last year in Sri Lanka, and he could earn a berth on Australia’s tour of India next year — particularly if he delivers with the bat this IPL. He didn’t bowl against Gujarat Titans, but already has an ODI five-wicket haul against South Africa to his name. “He’s got a very good head on young shoulders, reads the game really well and makes good decisions in the moment,” says Voges.
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Pressure doesn’t faze him. Voges recalls a counterpunching 90 on first-class debut against Tasmania, and an 11-ball 25 not out in the 2023 BBL final. “He’s been able to step up in those pressure moments and deliver. He works incredibly hard behind the scenes.”
He is someone who genuinely relishes big crowds and grand stages. He walks to bat with a song on his lips and almost always with a smile. “I like to embrace the occasion. If there’s a crowd, I like to look around, take it in, see how many people are in the stands. If I’m playing in a different country, I like to feel the culture,” he tells the podcast ‘Brain Break’.
His career has had its roadblocks, too. In his mid-teens, he admits he was a little laid back, and coaches would push him to work harder. He endured lean tournaments. He would nod, retreat to the nets, and bat for hours. He wasn’t among the runs in the lead-up to the IPL either, but Voges says he wasn’t rattled. “He went through a little period where it’s been tougher and he hasn’t been able to make the runs he would have liked. But he put those lessons into play and played really well against GT.”
Blond hair, nonchalant batsman, canny spinner. Australian cricket has long searched for the next generation to carry its batting lineage forward. In Connolly, it may not have to search much longer.
