JordanSilk

It took just three first-class matches for Sydney-born opener Jordan Silk to go from unknown Tasmania batsman to being selected for Australia A.

Having peeled off 127 against Victoria in just his second Sheffield Shield outing, he backed it up a week later with a patient innings of 108 in the 2012-13 final as the Tigers secured the title.

A switch to the middle-order proved an instant success at the start of the 2021-22 season, peeling off 514 runs at 57.11. He backed that up with another 500-run campaign the following season, taking over the full-time Tigers' captaincy as well.

But it was the 2023-24 summer where Silk emerged as one of the top leaders in Australian cricket, spearheading Tasmania's resurgence from fifth in 2022-23 to a return to the Shield final.

"Just the timing of it, it came at a stage where I was starting to get some good consistency in my white-ball cricket, so (the fact) I'd been doing it well in two other formats gave me the belief I could then translate it across to the red ball and have some success there," Silk told cricket.com.au in March 2024 of his change in batting position.

Silk twice fielded for Australia's Test side before he's made his first-class debut; first as a 17-year-old against Pakistan at the SCG and again in 2012 against Sri Lanka in Hobart, when he took a catch off the bowling of Nathan Lyon.

Rated by Ricky Ponting as one of the best fielders in Australia, the two-time Big Bash champion name went viral in early 2014 when he took an incredible diving catch playing for Sydney Sixers in the KFC BBL, which was described by Sir Vivian Richards as "one of the best catches that I've ever seen".