Jackson Barrett: Perth Scorchers knew Mahli Beardman was special, now rest of country does to

There were whispers of a rapid-quick country boy bowling 130km/h for Melville when Mahli Beardman was just a teenager. When he earned his first Western Australia contract, the State’s dominant batters didn’t want to face him in the nets. On Tuesday night, the whole country got to see it and Steve Smith saw it from 22 yards away. Beardman’s 3-20 off three overs was a coming out party. He took the wicket of international Josh Phillippe with his first ball — a fearsome bumper he skied — and broke the 140km/h barrier with his second ball. He flicked a switch on a match which appeared to be rolling further into inevitability By the end of his first over he had hurried-up Moises Henriques with a good length ball and then had him out top-edging. Ashton Turner gave Beardman a second straight over from the member’s end, something normally reserved for experienced strike bowlers, and again he didn’t concede a boundary. It was the sustained pressure — helped by strong ring-fielding — and his relentless dedication to his length that led to Smith mistiming a pull shot that landed with David Payne at square-leg. It was the biggest wicket of his career and he celebrated like it. Cooper Connolly was the first of the Big Bash generation to play for the Scorchers. Those young players that grew up wanting to wear orange as badly as they did white. Beardman has followed him into the side and he plays as with the same passion as the fans on the old WACA Ground hill. The 20-year-old has taken 14 wickets this season and eight in his past three games. In the days after the Scorchers’ BBL final on Sunday he will fly to Lahore as part of Australia’s Twenty20 squad. It is the third time he has been named in a national squad, but as bowlers rotate ahead of next month’s World Cup, he will almost certainly debut. It will come before his Sheffield Shield debut and after just 12 T20 and six one-day games, but it won’t be before time.