Beardman out to 'unsettle' batters in pace-fuelled comeback

Seven months on the sidelines has not shaken the confidence of emerging quick Mahli Beardman. If anything, it's fuelled his passion for pace bowling.

The 21-year-old speedster suffered a season-ending back injury after making his international debut against Pakistan in January.

Diagnosed with lumbar bone stress following the T20 international in Lahore, the Western Australia young gun returned to the field for the first time last month.

Beardman said his time away from the game only reinforced to him how much he loves fast bowling.

"What I've always loved doing is trying to run in, bowl fast and unsettle batters," Beardman said to cricket.com.au.

"I've never really been one to put it on the spot and just dabble away. It's always been about running in and trying to bowl fast, and I feel like that's one of my greatest weapons.

"It's been an incredible sort of six months... with that real focus on just trying to get fitter and a little bit stronger. My ball-speed feels like it's definitely in a good position. (I'm) back over the 140kph mark again in the nets which has been good.

"So that'll definitely be the focus over these next few months... trying to bowl fast and trying to upset as many batsmen as possible."

Taking inspiration from Australia captain Pat Cummins, who also suffered a disjointed start to his international career due to injury, Beardman has been carefully managed throughout the early stages of his career.

The former Australia Under-19 World Cup winner showed why he has been touted as a future leader of nation's pace attack with a breakthrough Big Bash season last summer.

His 13-wicket season helped lead Perth Scorchers to an unprecedented sixth BBL title, before he impressed on T20I debut with figures of 2-33.

Beardman has only played the one match for an Australia senior men's side, but he's spent valuable time around various white-ball squads.

He fondly recalls joining the nation's ODI side as a standby player for their UK tour in 2024, learning lessons from some of the game's modern-day greats.

"I was super fortunate for that first ODI tour that we had Starcy (Mitchell Starc) and we had Hoff (Josh Hazlewood)," Beardman said.

"I remember having some good conversations to Starcy about just crease angles and how he holds seam position for his wobble (seam delivery), a whole bunch of more technical aspects. Then from a professional standpoint, just how they prepare and how they fuel themselves and trying to copy and emulate what they do.

"I hope that I can have a quarter as much success at international and first-class level as what they've had."

Now he's back in the subcontinent. After playing in two One-Day Cup matches for WA, Beardman has arrived in Puducherry on India's east coast as part of the Australia A squad taking on India A in three 50-over games.

It's a chance for the right-armer to familiarise himself with a new country that he's expected to return to for the BBL|16 season opener between Melbourne Renegades and his Scorchers.

"Pakistan for my debut was incredible, but that was the first taste of subcontinent cricket that I've had, so this is a great learning opportunity for me," Beardman said.

"I think of we've got quite an experienced bowling lineup, so trying to pick those boys' brains as much as possible... and trying to get some exposure in the subcontinent, which hopefully down the track I'll be able to spend a little bit of time in those countries playing cricket."

While Beardman is focused on the white-ball in India and the beginning of Australia's domestic season, first-class cricket is still very much on the mind of the young man from Margaret River.

He has been contracted by WA for the past three seasons but is yet to make his Sheffield Shield debut. That could change by the end of the season if his body can tolerate the cricket ahead.

"Red-ball (cricket) I'd say is the number one on my priority list at the moment," Beardman said.

"That's something I've spoken about with the WACA... but it's a tough one at the moment.

"It's also been just understanding it's probably realistic to aim post-Christmas, not necessarily a date, but at least give myself a good five or six months of playing and competing again. Getting my body back into playing cricket and bowling back-to-back overs and back-to-back days.

"I think it's just realistic to focus on some white-ball cricket early doors, and then not put a time frame on anything. Hopefully show that my body can handle white-ball loads... and from there we can look to go forward and hopefully have a crack at some red-ball cricket."

For now, Beardman has been named to make his Australia A debut on Tuesday in the white-ball squad's first one-dayer against their Indian counterparts.

Every game in the series will take place in Puducherry before the side returns to Australia next week.

Australia A men's tour of India 2026

1st four-day: India A won by 162 runs

2nd four-day: Match drawn

1st one-day: Oct 6, Puducherry, 3pm AEDT

2nd one-day: Oct 9, Puducherry, 3pm AEDT

3rd one-day: Oct 11, Puducherry, 3pm AEDT

Australia A one-day squad: Mahli Beardman, Nikhil Chaudhary, Ben Dwarshuis, Spencer Johnson, Sam Konstas, Nathan McSweeney, Riley Meredith, Todd Murphy, Mitch Owen, Josh Philippe, Tanveer Sangha, Liam Scott, Lachlan Shaw, Will Sutherland

India A one-day squad: Priyansh Arya, Sai Sudharsan, Devdutt Padikkal (vc), Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Rajat Patidar, Kumar Kushagra (wk), Nishant Sindhu, Vipraj Nigam, Arshin Kulkarni, Arshad Khan, Naman Dhir, Hardik Pandya, Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Gurjapneet Singh, Yash Thakur