New string, new bling: Beau's evolution to Shield superstar

Beau Webster chuckles as he recounts a recent conversation with Big Bash teammate Nick Larkin concerning a fresh addition to his left ear for the new season.

The new earring had caught the Melbourne Stars batter's eye, and he couldn't resist pointing out the correlation to his form.

"He goes, 'I'd be keeping that in until you retire'," Webster tells cricket.com.au.

Certainly, the Tasmanian's batting averages across the three formats are up since adding the bling roughly 12 months ago, but his rise to one of Australia's elite allrounders could perhaps be more accurately traced to a decision he made three years earlier.

After floating up and down the top six as a part-time off-spinning batter for the first six seasons of his professional career, it was during the 2020-21 pre-season that Webster opted to chance his arm as a pace-bowling allrounder.

Born out of a desire to provide his coach and captain another option in selecting the team, the powerful right-hander had his sights set on emulating Tasmania's three-time Sheffield Shield-winning allrounder Luke Butterworth, the player of the final in the state's maiden title in 2006-07.

"When I took it up (medium pace) four years ago now I definitely had the thought of (wanting) to be that number six batting allrounder that Tassie really haven't had anyone successfully do since the Luke Butterworth days," Webster says.

"He's obviously the bowling allrounder mould … (but) he chimed in with some handy runs in Shield finals and he was a very, very handy bowler.

"The off-spin, whilst it was handy for our team when I was playing as a youngster and we could take in four quicks and I could bat in the top five and bowl some off-spin to give them a chop out, it was always a bit of a stopgap, I felt.

"I thought there (wouldn't) be any harm in adding another string, bowling some seam up and using my height – especially at Bellerive where it's notoriously seam friendly – to try and give us that extra option in both picking the team and for the captain to use his bowlers.

"So, I did it and I did it properly finally, rather than just doing bits and pieces and giving up after a month or two with a sore back."

While it was a switch that now requires longer and more gruelling training days ("bowling eight overs into a 45-minute hit, 45-minute slip-catching followed by strength stuff") to get his body into shape, his sacrifice instantly paid off.

Webster took 15 scalps in his first Shield season bowling almost exclusively seam up, followed by 25 more across the next two summers.

But it was with the bat where the boy from Snug – a small town of around 1,500 in Tasmania's south – felt like something was still missing, and what he ultimately craved to complete his transformation was that responsibility to begin thinking like a batter again –  a feeling  he didn't quite have at No.7, his most regular position in Tasmania's red-ball line-up prior to this summer since taking up medium pace.

"It's funny, as soon as you start bowling, you become an allrounder and you're always batting after the batters, even though I'm still a top six batter," he says.

"Batting at seven, it felt like I was almost there to bowl a little bit and if I got a fifty quickly and got some momentum, great, and if not then so be it."

After making 168 not out at No.6 in the final round of a fifth-placed 2022-23 Shield campaign for the Tigers, Webster went to head coach Jeff Vaughan and told him he wanted to make the spot his own.

"I just wanted to make it clear that I still want to bat in the middle order, whether it be five or six, and still have a chance to put up some big scores and help us post big totals," he says.

But not ever Webster could have predicted how successful his promotion would be, already peeling off the most runs ever for a No.6 in a single Shield season with one game and the final still to come, while also producing an all-round campaign not seen in the competition for almost three decades; not since Tom Moody in 1995-96 has a player hit more than 800 runs and taken at least 20 wickets in a season.

Only five players have done it – Moody twice, Simon O'Donnell, Garry Sobers, Norm O'Neill and now Webster, whose 167 not out and match haul of 3-63 against Victoria over the past four days saw him join the esteemed group.

And while his 2022-23 campaign of 596 runs and 19 wickets was also impressive, the consistency he was chasing with the bat meant the move to No.6 was crucial for his mindset.

"I've always been someone who's got a nice hundred and then missed out a few times," he says. "And then start the (new) season really poorly and then come home like a train."

Prior to this season, Webster's career Shield average before the Big Bash break (25.58) paled in comparison to his average afterward (38.95), and he'd only scored one century (122no against Victoria in December 2016) during that pre-BBL period compared to his seven after.

This summer, however, he started with a flurry of four half-centuries in five innings in October, followed by 97 not out and 103 in consecutive knocks in November, and he went to the KFC BBL|13 break averaging 71.14.

He has hit another two centuries and averaged 68.40 since the competition resumed, and finding a "nice rhythm" to roll from game to game has been the most pleasing aspect for the 30-year-old.

"The onus of batting six, it's definitely changed the mindset of my game and (put) a little bit more focus on the other guys in the team," he says.

"If somebody's in at the top of the order and I'm batting with them, I know how frustrating it can be when you lose wickets and all of a sudden, you're batting with a tail and you're costing your teammates big hundreds.

"So that was at the forefront of my mind. If I'm if batting with someone like 'Silky' (Jordan Silk) or Charlie (Wakim) or 'Wadey' (Matthew Wade) who's in, I want to be there and tugboat them a little bit and not let them change their game to bat with a tail.

"So, batting at six, it is a pure batting role and I've found myself thinking more like I used to, when I was batting in the top three."

While he hasn't ditched the off-spin completely (it came in handy last winter during a county stint with Essex in the 50-over competition), Webster surmises he'd got to a point where he'd reached his potential as a spinner.

"It's funny that when you're a batsman who bowls a bit of part-time off-spin, it feels like you can work for days on it and they don't get too much better," the right-armer says, having claimed 57 career wickets at almost 50 with his tweakers.

"You can always come back to it and still have the same effect."

Webster's off-spin might yet be useful when he heads back to England this winter to join Gloucestershire for the T20 Blast and two County Championship fixtures against Yorkshire and Glamorgan in June.

And it remains a useful arrow in the 30-year-old's quiver given the crowed nature of Australia's pace-bowling allrounder ranks as he sets no limit on where his career might be headed.

"I want to play as much as I can," he says.

"If I can keep putting performances on the board and keep doing what I've done in the last two to three seasons, who knows where you can get?

"You're a few injuries away or a couple of guys being rested away from potentially finding yourself in a PM's (Prime Minister's XI) game with a pretty strong team which was full of Test cricketers and close-to-being Test cricketers.

"You're never too far away from it if you're in good form in the Shield comp.

"I'll keep plugging away and keep putting numbers on the board and if anything comes, it'd be great, but I think a Shield (title) would mean the most to me at the moment."­

Sheffield Shield 2023-24 standings

Team	Matches played M	Wins W	Losses L	Drawn D	No results N/R	Deductions Ded.	Batting Bonus Bat	Bowling Bonus Bowl	Total points PTS
1 Western Australia Men WA	10	5	2	3	0	0	5.53	9.4	47.93
2 Tasmanian Tigers Men TAS	10	5	2	3	0	0	6.06	8.3	47.36
3 NSW Men NSW	10	4	3	3	0	0	6.31	9	42.31
4 Victoria Men VIC	10	4	4	2	0	0	4.74	8.2	38.94
5 South Australia Men SA	10	3	6	1	0	0	5.19	9.3	33.49
6 Queensland Bulls QLD	10	2	6	2	0	0	3.54	8.3	25.84

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Wins

L: Losses

D: Drawn

N/R: No results

Ded.: Deductions

Bat: Batting Bonus

Bowl: Bowling Bonus

PTS: Total points