![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/tim-david-exclusive-meet-the-australian-freelancer-who-has-never-played-a-first-class-game/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/TELEMMGLPICT000314064251_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg&description=In early 2019, David lost his Western Australia rookie contract. Aged 23, his only professional experience was four games for Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash, batting between five and seven. 'All my opportunities basically up to that date had been batting in the middle order in T20 cricket,' David recalls. 'They were probably most likely to be the next opportunities I had.' And so, rather than spread his focus around the three formats, David's approach became hyper-specialised: not just specialising in one format, but one role within it. Few covet batting at six or seven: the role requires batsmen to attack from the off, often only receiving 10 or fewer deliveries. Regular failure is guaranteed. There is also scant chance for a batsman to regain form: over the course of a two-month IPL or Big Bash campaign, they might barely face 100 deliveries. But David believed that there was a potential gap in the market as a powerful finisher. 'You have to be willing to accept you're gonna fail,' he explains. "You've got to be willing to take risks, willing to take the game on. And when it comes off, it's really rewarding.' Rebuilding his game David's first step was transforming his training. Working with Jim Allenby, the former Glamorgan and Somerset player who is now a batting consultant in his native Western Australia, David focused relentlessly on how to hit sixes. 'It was the most specific training I've ever seen anyone do really,' Allenby recalls. 'He had a few balls at the start to get loose then everything was full tilt. If he defended or left a ball it was frowned upon.' David had three two-hour sessions a week with Allenby, an old family friend; without any Western Australia contract, the player funded them himself. 'It was about trying to reinvent his style of play and do something that was going to get him an opportunity,' Allenby reflects. The aim was to enable David to hit both a wide yorker and bouncer with the same type of swing. The two studied how golf players){kind=link}
David is one of the world’s most destructive T20 batsmen and will take on England on Friday
When asked how much he practises playing forward defensive shots, Tim David laughs. “Not when I’m preparing to bat six in a T20 for Australia. No, there’s not much point in that.
“In the middle order in T20 cricket, you have to be aggressive. So you practise batting like that instead of practising forward defences.”
For a sense of the zeitgeist of T20, consider the one change that Australia made to their XI between their victory in the World Cup final last year and their opening game of the 2022 competition. In place of Steve Smith, one of the greatest Test batsmen of all time, Australia picked a man who has never even played a first-class match: the hulking figure of David.
Ricky Ponting has proclaimed him “the sort of player that could actually win you a World Cup.” It is a view emphatically endorsed by the T20 free market: in last year’s Indian Premier League auction, David was solid for Rs 8.25 crore (£880,000): he was the most expensive Australian at the auction.