Josh Inglis: How centurion became one of Australia’s best players of spin bowling and what it means for Ashes

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. It’s the famous Muhammad Ali quote — adapted by animated motor racing legend Lightning McQueen — that sums up Josh Inglis’ debut against Sri Lanka. The diminutive wicketkeeper-batter doesn’t have the giant stride some of his teammates do. He relies on dancing feet to get to the pitch of the ball and to rest deep in his crease. He rides shorter balls on his toes and uses the sweep — both conventional and otherwise — wisely. Inglis floats around the crease and his hands — as rapid and powerful as any in international cricket — sting bowlers like he did on his way to 102 in Galle on Thursday. The 29-year-old was Yorkshire born and moved to Perth’s northern suburbs as a teenager. He was brought up on West Australian wickets, where pace and bounce are meat-and-veg and batters live on the back foot. His proficiency against spin breaks the mould in WA. “I think he has naturally always been a good player of spin,” WA coach Adam Voges told The West Australian. “He’s quick on his feet, he can get forward and back well, he uses his sweeps well and seems to have time and trust his defence as well. “You put all those elements together and I think that gives you a pretty good opportunity for success. “It has been something that I think has been in Josh’s game for a long time and I think he feels confident facing spin as well. “Even in those conditions, it spun a little bit, but he made it look not too bad. I thought he did a great job.” Inglis works closely with Test spinner-turned-batting coach Beau Casson and also played one season of The Hundred for London Spirit under Australia’s greatest-ever bowler Shane Warne. After coaching Inglis in the final year of his life, Warne was an outspoken advocate for the West Aussie. “He’s one of those new, modern 360 (degree) players,” Warne said in 2021. “He’s got every single shot — he’s got the ramp, the reverse ramps and he’s got the traditional normal shots as well. He’s very switched on and hungry for knowledge. “When you try to separate at top-level sport what makes a difference, sometimes it’s just the way they think or their match awareness of doing the right thing at the right time. “So far he hasn’t put a foot wrong. He’s very, very impressive and I reckon he’s going to be representing Australia very, very quickly.” He also said experience playing white-ball cricket for Australia in south Asia, including in India, where he won the 2023 World Cup and made a record-equalling Twenty20 hundred days later, had helped set him up for his dazzling debut. “Obviously having played in the sub-continent helps, because you have got experiences to look back on,” Inglis said. “It is just something we work on. The training camp we had in Dubai was really key.” Usman Khawaja played half his innings as a right-hander as a swept and paddled his way to a maiden double-century, while Alex Carey has long lent on his reverse sweep. “Everyone has their own individual plans and working out what they look like and then it’s about doing it and sticking to it for as long as you can,” Inglis said. “I think we have seen a lot of the guys have clear plans throughout our whole batting innings and we played really well.” Inglis’ debut — and a lightning start to the Sheffield Shield season where he scored 363 runs in just three matches — could complicate matters for Australian selectors ahead of next summer’s blockbuster Ashes series. While he was pulled into the team in Sri Lanka as a specialist against spin and with Travis Head’s middle-order spot vacated by his horses-for-course move to open, Inglis has batted as high as No.3 for WA and opened in white-ball cricket. The West Australian understands concerns over his ability to face the new ball in long-form matches left national selectors reluctant to hand him a debut when they instead picked Nathan McSweeney to open at the start of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series. Teen sensation Sam Konstas was left out in Sri Lanka but it is likely he will regain his spot by the time the Ashes begin at the end of November, while Khawaja’s spot on home soil is still under a cloud despite his massive score this week. “I think the fact that he has made his way into the team as a bat only and doesn’t have the wicketkeeping gloves is a great testamant to him and the work he has done with his batting,” Voges said of Inglis. “His flexibility, he can really bat anywhere in the top six, we have seen him up the top in white-ball cricket, he has batted up the order for Western Australia in shield cricket at times. “Whether that’s with the gloves or just as a batter, there is flexibility there, and hopefully that allows him to get opportunities in different conditions and not just in the sub-continent.” Carey’s summer of batting resurgence, where he scored 216 runs in the five-match series against India, will buy him more time with the gloves, four years after he took over from former Test captain Tim Paine.