Kelly out to cement spot in 'world-class' attack

Matthew Kelly counts himself lucky that he was even able to play a few games during the Perth Scorchers' championship-winning season.

He could easily count himself as stiff – the right-armer was omitted after claiming then career-best T20 figures of 4-28 during their second game of the KFC BBL season in December and then contracted COVID-19 after bettering it with 4-25 against the Melbourne Renegades in early January.

He didn't play another game after that – and only managed six appearances in Perth's 16 matches for the tournament – also missing their XI for the final against the Sydney Sixers as the Scorchers won their fourth title to become the competition's most successful Big Bash club.

Kelly's 14 wickets from those six games put him 18th on the tournament's list of top wicket-takers and his average of 12.78 was the lowest of the top 30.

It's one of the hard luck stories of the tournament – and comes after he didn't play at all in BBL|10 – but with the international experience of Ashton Agar, Jhye Richardson, AJ Tye, Jason Behrendorff and Tymal Mills in their line-up throughout the season he understands it’s a hard team to break into.

Instead, the 27-year-old feels fortunate even to be able to play and handful games alongside those "world-class" bowlers and is even happier that he was able to perform.

"One thing I knew is that we've got a super strong bowling attack in WA and at the Scorchers and opportunities were going to be hard to come by," he told cricket.com.au ahead of Western Australia's first domestic match post BBL|11.

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"But something that we knew from the start of the tournament was there were going to be a lot of hurdles and an opportunity was going to come up and when you got that opportunity you just have to take it.

"I was really lucky that I had a few chances to play and I managed to do OK and have a lot of fun out there.

"We had a world-class bowling attack when we were fully fit so it was really hard to break into.

"It adds extra motivation to try and break into that team and play as much as possible and that's something hopefully I can do next year."

Kelly says training was that intense during the Scorchers' championship season – where they played all bar one game away from home – it kept in good shape to perform despite being in and out of the side.

"In the most recent times training has been pretty limited and away from cricket we couldn't really do much so when we did get a chance to train everyone went pretty hard and gave it a really good crack," he says.

"It meant you had to bowl really well at training, you got batters coming really hard at you and I think that held us in good stead because that was the best part of every day when you could go and train.

"It just meant that I had to work really hard there so that when an opportunity came up, I was ready to go.

"Twenty20 cricket you never know what's going to happen, I got lucky with a few wickets, sometimes you get on a roll, sometimes you get hit over the fence a bit.

"The experience as a whole was unbelievable, probably something we won't ever do again, being away from home for so long with a really great group of people and winning it was just the icing on the cake."

After a month spent at home – a week of which was spent in quarantine – catching up with family and friends they hadn't seen since before the start of the Big Bash, WA resume their Marsh One-Day Cup season today against Victoria knowing they need to win big to go through to the final on Friday.

A week later the four-day ladder-leaders restart their Marsh Sheffield Shield season against NSW at Bankstown Oval before returning home to take on Victoria at the WACA in what could be a preview of the final the following week.

"It was a long time on the road with the Scorchers group, a long time away for West Australian players so it's certainly been a nice little period for us to catch up with family and friends and just freshen up before another stint away," Kelly says.

"A lot of guys haven't seen anyone for a long period of time so I think that's really important, it makes your cricket a lot better when we have time away from the game as well.

"But we're really looking forward to getting back into WA colours and playing for WA again, we love doing it, so we can't wait.

"There's plenty to play for now going into the back end of the season – when you start the summer, you play to try and win trophies and we're in a position where we can hopefully make two finals, that's something we talk about a lot and that's why you play the game to win with your mates."

Once the Australian summer is over, Kelly will fly straight to the UK for his first season abroad after signing with Division One side Northants for the first six rounds of the County Championship season.

"My priority growing up was to always represent Western Australia and play at the highest level I could," he says.

"As you get older you want to experience playing around the world and that's something we're so lucky to do as cricketers if we get the opportunity is to travel the world and play cricket.

"I've managed to get an opportunity to go play in England. It's something I've been wanting to do for a while so just to have a short little period over there will be really beneficial.

"This will be my first time over there, so I don't really know what to expect.

"The more games you play in different conditions you become a better player by just experiencing playing against good opposition, different conditions, different ball, which I'm really looking forward to using on some green seamers hopefully.

"It's been a tough couple of years here on some flat wickets so getting over there and getting some green seamers early – apparently Northants home ground is a nice place to bowl at the start of the summer – that's what I've heard anyway, I'll probably rock up and it'll be a flat one."

Kelly says Western Australia bowling coach Matt Mason – the former WA quick who played two seasons for his birth state before moving to County side Worcestershire in 2002 – had a "huge impact" on him and was keen for them to experience what it's like over in England.

"That's how it came about – he really pushed for me to get over there," Kelly says.

Mason will also be heading over to the UK after accepting a job as bowling coach at Warwickshire.

Victoria and WA's Marsh Cup clash at the Junction Oval on Tuesday will be live streamed on cricket.com.au and Kayo from 10.30am.

WA squad: Ashton Turner (c), Cameron Bancroft, Jason Behrendorff, Hilton Cartwright, Aaron Hardie, Nick Hobson, Matthew Kelly, Shaun Marsh, Lance Morris, Joel Paris, Josh Philippe, Jhye Richardson, D’Arcy Short, Andrew Tye, Sam Whiteman

Victoria squad: Peter Handscomb (c), Aaron Finch, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Mackenzie Harvey, Jon Holland, Nic Maddinson, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron McClure, Todd Murphy, Fergus O’Neill, James Pattinson, Henry Thornton