Opening batter Teague Wyllie is one of the promising young talents to have emerged out of the ICC U-19 World Cup 2022 in the Caribbean. The 17-year-old Australian right-hander has been instrumental to his team’s run in the competition so far. Wyllie is Australia U-19’s top-scorer for the tournament by a distance. He has made […]
Opening batter Teague Wyllie is one of the promising young talents to have emerged out of the ICC U-19 World Cup 2022 in the Caribbean. The 17-year-old Australian right-hander has been instrumental to his team’s run in the competition so far.
Wyllie is Australia U-19’s top-scorer for the tournament by a distance. He has made 264 runs from his four innings, including a best of 101 not out, with an average of 132 and strike-rate of 75.21.
The top-order anchor has made as many as three scores of fifty or more in the youth World Cup, which features a pivotal 71 off 97 balls in the Super League quarterfinal against Pakistan in Antigua.
In an interview with the ICC, Teague Wyllie, the solid defensive batter, revealed he has modelled his game on the legendary Indian batter Rahul Dravid.
Wyllie said while it is not that he has copied everything about Dravid’s style at the crease, he has certainly focused on imbibing few of the qualities that the former India captain was a flagbearer of for a good part of two decades at the international stage.
Teague Wyllie has been Australia’s best batter at the U-19 World Cup. (pic courtesy: Getty/cricket.com.au)
The technical correctness, the ability and the patience to bite the bullet and play out tough periods like Dravid has been a source of inspiration for Teague Wyllie, who said: “I’m a very stodgy kind of opener who just tries to bat the innings.”
“I wouldn’t say there’s one particular player that I’ve modelled my game on, but I consider myself to bat a little like Dravid. I like to bat long periods of time and not give my wicket my way,” he added.
Another great player that Wyllie likes to follow is New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, who also is not exactly a blaster of the cricket ball but is able to adjust his game to all formats of the game.
“Another is Kane Williamson – the way he likes to manoeuvre the ball around the gaps and manipulate the field. That’s probably another player I’d consider myself to be like.”
Lauded for his work ethics in the Australian circuit, Wyllie’s Dravid resemblance hasn’t evaded the eyes of Graham Manou, Australia’s talent and pathways manager, who was pleased when he came to know the legend one of his wards is trying to follow at the crease.
“He is one of the few young players that I’ve come across in recent times that really understands the history of the game,” Manou told cricket.com.au for Teague Wyllie. “There’s a lot of characteristics both technically and physically that are going to hold him in great stead. The world could be his oyster.”
“He’s got an understanding of some of the great players. I was listening to his intro on the broadcast yesterday and he’s talking about how his game is very similar to Dravid.”
“There’s only a few guys that I have come across that have been really aware of modelling their game on some of the great players – not just necessarily within our own four walls. He’s sort of looked outside the square and Dravid is not a bad one to model your game on, is he?”
Also Read: Teague Wyllie, likened to Damien Martyn, eager to make his mark in the U19 Men’s World Cup 2022
Before the U-19 World Cup in West Indies, Teague Wyllie showcased his Dravid-esque qualities playing a full season of Western Australia Premier Cricket. Aged only 16 at the time, the batter recorded 627 runs at an average of 44.77 for Rockingham-Mandurah. What is even more commendable was that he spent a whopping 1,851 minutes at the crease during the tournament.
Wyllie followed that up with scores of 79, 112, 153 and 38 for WA’s second XI and put himself in the reckoning for the junior World Cup in the Caribbean. It is expected that his exploits will soon pave way for a first-class debut in the second half of this summer’s Sheffield Shield.
