Maturing Will finds his way with Australia A

Sitting at his desk in the middle of a Year 10 exam, Will Pucovski gets a tap on the shoulder from his Brighton Grammar teacher.

The teacher bends down and passes on a message so important that it simply cannot wait: Mitchell Johnson has just blasted out a couple more England batsmen.

"In the middle of my exam I'm pretty excited about that," Pucovski says with a grin, reflecting on that 2013-14 summer when the Aussies whitewashed England in the Ashes and Johnson ran riot.

"I loved that the teacher had the audacity to come up and tell me in the middle of our exams."

In a month or so, teachers around Australia could be passing on a similar message to their students about Pucovski's Ashes heroics, so highly is the young Victorian batsman regarded.

The 21-year-old is in England with Australia A's squad, which finishes it's white-ball duties today against Gloucestershire before moving to Brighton to begin the red-ball, four-day campaign against Sussex in Arundel on Sunday.

It's there where the chance to push for Ashes selection ramps up a notch; white clothes, Dukes balls and first-class cricket with chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns watching every run, wicket and catch in person.

The right-handed Pucovski is comfortably the youngest and least experienced of the Australia A squad, but a first-class record that boasts an average of 44, three centuries and almost 1000 runs in 13 matches speaks for itself.

It's why he was picked on the tour and why he almost won a Baggy Green last summer, having been drafted into Australia's Test squad to face Sri Lanka as part of a batting overhaul in the wake of a series defeat to India.

Ultimately, he wasn't picked for either of the two Tests, and as he considers it now, Pucovski is relieved he wasn't handed a maiden cap.

"Upon reflection it was probably a good thing I didn’t get picked – I probably wasn't quite ready at the time," he says.

"Things work out in funny ways and I'm definitely better off for the experience.

"It was a great couple of weeks and a great learning curve."

Pucovski returned to his state side with a taste of the big time, scoring more runs and playing an important part in Victoria's Sheffield Shield title win.

But while it ended in celebration, it was a rollercoaster season for the rookie batsman.

After starting the year with an historic 243 in Victoria's Shield clash with Western Australia in Perth, Cricket Victoria announced in the week that followed that their young batting gun would take an indefinite break from cricket to manage his wellbeing.

After returning in the final Shield round before the BBL break, comfortable that he was feeling better equipped to handle the pressures of professional cricket, Pucovski then found himself thrown into the Test squad for the Sri Lanka series.

Again it proved a little too much too soon, and so on the eve of his 21st birthday he proactively left the Test squad ahead of the Canberra Test.

His mental health issues represent a daily challenge he works on with his mindfulness coach, Emma Murray, and over the past nine months the pair have devised a set of routines for Pucovski to follow to help take the emotion out of batting.

"It's freed me up a bit," he says. "I'm not going to base whether I failed or succeeded on a personal level based on my result, but more on how I went about it.

"It's still well and truly a work in progress. I feel like I'm in a position where that's going to be more important to me than working on technical things and all of those aspects of cricket.

"It's more the mental side and being able as a batsman how to work out concentrating and (being) focused for as long as I can and work out a way to be as consistent as possible."

His routines might sound simple, like unstrapping his gloves at the non-striker's end in between deliveries, but in the heat of the battle they can be easier said than done.

"My main thing is I wiggle my toes," Pucovski explains.

"So when I get into my stance I wiggle my toes, I get my two V's (the shape his hands make gripping the bat) down the back of my bat and then just try to relax my shoulders and it's just about watching the ball.

"It's telling myself 'watch the ball, watch the ball' as close as I can then just backing your instincts from there.

"It's pretty simple … but in the midst of a game when there's lots going on around you it's harder to apply.

"Going into the four-dayers in a week or so when the ball is swinging around or doing a bit more it's probably that little bit harder to apply.

"It's something I have to work on continuously and as the years roll on you just get better and better."

Pucovski says it would it would be a dream to be named in Australia's Ashes squad following the conclusion of Australia A's showdown with an Australian XI later this month in Southampton.

But after everything he's been through, the possibility of selection on the most prestigious and grandest Test tour for an Australian cricketer isn't causing him to lose any sleep.

"I've never been fazed about selection, it's something that's never worried me because it's out of my control, I can't actually do anything about so I'm not going to be annoyed or overly ambitious," he said.

"The Ashes is one of those things where every player obviously wants to be on it but at the same time I've had an awesome time with the Australia A boys and hope that continues over the next month or so.

"This might sound bad, but if I'm not selected I don't think I'll be losing much sleep over it.

"I'll just go back and say I had a great time in England with Australia A, I'm 21 years old, there's plenty of things ahead and just keep trying to put your name up with good performances here and for Victoria.

"I guess your time will come when your time will come.

"If it's in a month that would be amazing but there's a lot of blokes in good form and a lot of blokes that deserve selection. It's not going to worry me much, to be honest."

As for his exam efforts once he heard Johnson was tearing England apart?

"I probably lost about 20 per cent after that moment," he laughs, "but that's alright."

Australia A tour of the UK

Get live scores and all the latest news from Australia A's tour of the UK on cricket.com.au and the CA Live app

Australia A one-day squad: Travis Head (c), Matthew Wade, Will Pucovski, Peter Handscomb, Mitch Marsh (vc), D'Arcy Short, Kurtis Patterson, Ashton Agar, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood (vc), Sean Abbott, Andrew Tye

Australia A four-day squad: Tim Paine (c), Marcus Harris, Kurtis Patterson, Will Pucovski, Travis Head (vc), Peter Handscomb, Matthew Wade, Mitch Marsh, Michael Neser, Jon Holland, James Pattinson, Jackson Bird, Josh Hazlewood (vc), Chris Tremain

One-day fixtures:

June 20: Australia A beat Northamptonshire by six wickets

June 23: Australia A beat Derbyshire by seven wickets

June 25: Australia A v Worcestershire, match abandoned

June 30: Australia A beat Gloucestershire by five wickets

July 2: Australia A v Gloucestershire, Bristol

Four-day fixtures:

July 7-10: Australia A v Sussex, Arundel

July 13-16: Australia A v England Lions, Canterbury

July 23-26: Australia v Australia A, Hampshire