'Hard-working' O'Connor rewarded with Australia debut at cricket world cup

After celebrating the upcoming 100-game milestones of Sophie Parkin and Elyse Page, players, coaches and supporters turned their heads to the television screen to watch the under-19 Cricket World Cup in South Africa as Australia took on Zimbabwe.

"Everybody was glued to the TV screen, waiting for him to come out to bat. I've never seen so many people sitting at a table at the cricket club at the one time, it was pretty exciting for everyone," first-grade captain Peter New said.

The reason for the excitement was because their own teammate, 17-year-old Aidan O'Connor, was making his international debut.

The George Town product, who has been plying his trade for the Blues, Greater Northern Raiders and Tasmanian Tigers' second XI, was made to wait for his chance in the green and gold having carried the drinks in Australia's win against Namibia, but was granted a spot in their second contest.

Batting at seven, the all-rounder was unable to get off to a dream start having come in late in Australia's 50-over innings, only lasting three balls before chipping it back to Zimbabwean bowler Ryan Simbi without troubling the scorers.

But that would not stop the right-arm fast bowler from having an impact.

After the Chevrons were in crisis mode at 4-11, they steadied with Ronak Patel and Brendon Sunguro at the crease, before O'Connor was handed the ball by captain Hugh Weibgen.

In his four-over spell, O'Connor charged in and removed Sunguro and followed up later in his spell to bowl Patel - the only two batters to reach double figures for Zimbabwe.

"That's the thing, I can't remember a game where if he hasn't got runs he's bowled badly or vice versa," New said.

"That's the beauty of him with having both facets of his game at such a quality level that he can always influence the game one way or another and that's probably one of the reasons why he's going so well at the moment is he's really determined to have an influence either way."

New added it felt surreal for many at the club who have known him for such a long time to be seeing him play in South Africa.

"To think what he's achieved in such a short amount of time over the last 12 months, to be overseas at the moment and representing his country, when - six weeks ago - he was sitting on a bus heading over to the North West to play a game of cricket for Riverside," he said.

"It just shows the talent that he's got and how hard he's worked to get to where he is now."

Another person who can attest to his recent improvement is Raiders coach Alistair Taylor, who said O'Connor's response to his broken leg in 2022 has made his progress unsurprising.

"It's been rapid. Obviously, his injury has been spoken about a fair bit, he missed a fair chunk of last year in terms of his development, but he's worked his backside off, he started in May last year preparing for this cricket season, so it's certainly no surprise with the amount of work he puts in," Taylor said.

Having played at four separate levels of cricket in this summer alone, Taylor said the under-19 national championships player of the tournament recipient had the ability and the mindset to meet any new challenge that came his way.

"He's probably coming along a little bit quicker than we thought, but some players are able to adapt quickly to the higher level and the higher level they go, the better they play," he said.

"There's still some things he needs to work on for the Raiders, I'm sure he'll be the first one to admit he hasn't scored the runs he wants to, but his bowling has been phenomenal."

For Taylor and New, seeing O'Connor continue to get chances at the world cup are what they're most hopeful for, while the latter suggested the enthusiasm at Riverside won't be dying down any time soon.

"The excitement and the chatter over the last couple of weeks between the boys has all just been about how he's going to go, when he's going to get his opportunity and now that he's got a crack, that's probably only going to go up ten-fold."

O'Connor's next chance to play for Australia is on Sunday night (Australia time), when they face Sri Lanka at 7pm.