Aaron Hardie was just another youngster aspiring to dawn the baggy green in future till Thursday morning. After 90 overs of cricket against a full strength touring Indian side, the teenager has suddenly become the toast of the local media. The reason? His four-wicket haul in the warm-up match including that of Indian captain Virat Kohli – the best batsman across formats in the world.
The 19-year-old England-born all-rounder stopped Virat Kohli on his tracks during India’s only warm-up match against Cricket Australia XI at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Kohli, batting in full flow against a mediocre bowling attack, hit one uppishly off Hardie’s ball. The youngster held on to a difficult return catch on his follow through bringing an end to a strokeful 64-run knock from the Indian captain.
"It was a pretty amazing feeling. A bit surreal. It all happened very quickly. Because he was smacking me around the park a little bit and then next minute he hit one back to me," Hardie was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia.
The right-arm medium pacer, who plays under banned Australian opener Cameron Bancroft at Perth club Willetton, then got Rohit Sharma edging one for 40 and returned to polish off the Indian tail ending up with impressive figures of 4 for 50. CA XI bowled India out for 358. Five Indian batsmen - Virat Kohli, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari - scored half-centuries.
This was not the first Hardie had got big wickets in his rising career. Last year, Hardie dismissed England captain Joe Root – perhaps, fortunately – and James Vince in the same over while playing for Western Australia in the first tour match of the Ashes summer.
The teenager is no muck with the bat too. He had forced his way in Western Australia's extended JLT Sheffield Shield squad after smashing a century in a league game against an attack involving Test pacemen Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.