Australia's million-dollar man declares World Cup goal

Australia's million-dollar T20 globetrotter Tim David has declared he wants to play at this year's World Cup should a spot open up in the reigning world champions' squad.

David is yet to play for Australia despite dominating the global T20 circuit over recent years and was conspicuously absent from the 2-1 series victory in Sri Lanka last month.

The 26-year-old middle-order power-hitter is currently the format's third-highest run-scorer worldwide this year with 948 at an incredible strike rate of 186.01 and is less than 50 runs behind the top two in Shan Masood (1033) and Alex Hales (1012) who are both opening batters and have faced far more deliveries.

David was born in Singapore (who he played 14 T20Is for between 2019-2020) but grew up in Western Australia and having only played for an Associate nation he has always been eligible to represent Australia without any qualification period.

The Hobart Hurricanes blaster said he'd be "thrilled" to represent Australia as they look to defend their title at the T20 World Cup on home soil later this year but knows it will be hard to break into relatively settled line-up.

"It fills me with a lot of confidence to have been able to (play well in domestic T20 leagues) but international cricket is a different beast," said David ahead of Lancashire's T20 Blast semi-final against archrivals Yorkshire.

Image Id: 6B683088B9964F5C8FF067D9A36B9E3C Image Caption: David scored 186 runs in eight games for Mumbai in IPL 2022 // BCCI-Sportzpics

"They won the World Cup eight months ago and that team hasn't changed since then.

"Those guys have been playing for Australia for a long time, but if I had the opportunity to be a part of it, I'd be thrilled and really excited.

"I'm not really thinking about it too much, to be honest … I just want to keep trying to improve and have fun. If I get there or I'm around at that time, then that would be awesome."

The right-hander revealed he had not spoken with Australia chair of selectors George Bailey since the Indian Premier League, where despite being dropped by Mumbai Indians after just two games, finished the tournament with the highest strike rate among batters to have faced more than 25 balls (186 runs at a strike rate of 216.27 from eight matches).

But David, who was purchased by Mumbai for A$1.5m in February's auction, is well and truly on the radar of national selectors and skipper Aaron Finch, who said last week there would "no doubt" be opportunities to get him into the side before the World Cup kicks off in October.

That means David, whose next assignment following the T20 Blast finals this weekend is the Hundred with Southern Brave and Caribbean Premier League with St Lucia Kings, could be in line for an Australian debut in the coming months with a T20 series in India and two at home – against West Indies and England – to come before the tournament begins.

David has enhanced his reputation as one of T20 cricket's best finishers during the Blast where his strike rate of 186 is bettered only by Rilee Rossouw (197.36) and Alex Hales (193.78) of those to have scored more than 200 runs, and if he does make his debut in the next few months, he would join David Warner in representing Australia before playing a first-class match.

His development into one of the game's most consistent ball-strikers wasn't necessarily the path David imagined he might have taken when he was first contracted by WA in 2018-19.

"I saw that there was quite a specific set of skills needed to do the job in white-ball cricket and I thought that was something I could do," he said.

"Until I started doing it in games it was a bit of a hedged guess, but I felt that’s what my skills led me to and then it was just working really hard and trying to improve myself all the time."

David has a good record against today's semi-final opponents having blasted 101 runs from 50 balls in two thrilling regular season Roses matches, the first of which finished in a tie with Lancashire snatching a four-run final ball victory in the second thank to a stunning boundary catch.

"These Roses matches are exciting, there's always something in the air. It doesn't matter who's on top, there will be some sort of change in momentum," said David.

The semi-final between Yorkshire and Lancashire at Edgbaston will be broadcast live on Foxtel and Kayo tonight from 8pm AEST, with the second semi-final between Hampshire and Somerset featuring Australians Ben McDermott, Nathan Ellis and Peter Siddle to follow at 11.30pm. The two winners will then face off for the T20 Blast title at 3.45am.

Australians in 2022 English T20 Blast

Birmingham: Nathan McAndrew

Derbyshire: Hilton Cartwright, Hayden Kerr

Durham: Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye

Essex: Daniel Sams

Glamorgan: Marnus Labuschagne, Michael Neser

Gloucestershire: Marcus Harris

Hampshire: Nathan Ellis, Ben McDermott

Lancashire: Tim David

Middlesex: Jason Behrendorff, Chris Green

Northamptonshire: Matthew Kelly, Chris Lynn

Nottinghamshire: Dan Christian, James Pattinson

Somerset: Peter Siddle

Surrey: Aaron Hardie

Sussex: Josh Philippe