By now everyone who watches Test cricket has an idea of ​​the kind of person Scott Boland is. Quiet, reserved, familiar with his work but never with the attention that accompanies it. As Australian audiences enjoy the youthful flashiness of Sam Konstas since his All Dance debut, there is growing appreciation, even love, for the fast bowler, who is cheered back to the fence every time he changes his fielding position and with responds with a flicker of a smile or a raised hand that is half acknowledgment, half apology.

His selection as an unlikely hero was less surprising in his three Melbourne Tests as his Victorian hometown, but the same has now been the case in Sydney in his two forays to the SCG. On the first day of the fifth Test against India on Friday, Boland was once again the crowd’s favorite, almost taking a hat-trick in the first session, almost taking a hat-trick in the third and becoming the top bowler with four for 31 while leading India for 185 defeated.

Some milestones have been reached for Boland. First, his 50th Test wicket, a modest milestone but one that separates the brief ventures in Test cricket from the substance that can be called a career. It’s a number that has often seemed unlikely for Boland: he was 32 years old before he was first called up to the squad; after a tough game in Nagpur and a tougher one in Leeds in 2023; or just a few weeks ago when he spent 18 months on the bench behind the ever-fit Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood. Opportunities for Boland are doomed to be occasional, even after his devastating Ashes debut and a crucial performance in the World Test Championship final.

The other milestone was his 2,000th delivery, the threshold that can be counted on statisticians’ lists of career numbers. Boland takes his wickets at 18 runs each, a mark that has only been bettered by a dozen bowlers. Ten of them took place before the First World War: the others are Bert Ironmonger from the 1930s and Frank Tyson from the 1950s. This isn’t just a feel-good story about a humble Australian worker receiving a modest reward. It’s about someone who performs at the highest level. Boland’s numbers after his debut were wild, but the larger sample size didn’t hurt them much.

Boland’s career was a lesson in humility. He played state cricket in an era when the MCG barely moved, with occasional forays along the road, where the Junction Oval was his only sleepy rival. His answer was relentless precision. For a time around 2016, he transferred this to white-ball York bowling, teaming up with John Hastings to turn in a 24-ball save at return in the last four overs of each Melbourne Stars innings. Both briefly ended up in the white-ball national teams. Boland was rejected and reported back for duty at the MCG.

Years later, after all the effort, Test cricket turned around and gave him something different. Introduced as a workhorse, Boland’s career at the top was marked by wickets in spurts. The most impressive thing about his testing adventure was the way he can explode.

When he had Yashasvi Jaiswal caught in the gully by debutant Beau Webster on Friday, it was the seventh time Boland had struck out in his first over of an innings. When Virat Kohli was about to slip, it looked like it would be eight, but Steve Smith’s save from Marnus Labuschagne was ruled out by the third umpire.

If it’s not the first over, it’s the first spell: of the 50 Test wickets mentioned above, 21 came in this period. Even when he does get into the following games, he strikes early in them: a total of 12 wickets in the first over of a game, 15 in the second over and 10 in the third, which makes up the majority of his tally. There must be something about his style that players have a particularly hard time grappling with before they get used to it.

So many of these early strikes result in multiple wickets being returned in an over. His Melbourne debut exploded as he beat Joe Root and Jack Leach one night and Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson the next day. In Adelaide against West Indies he struck out Kraigg Braithwaite, Shamarh Brooks and Jermaine Blackwood in his first over of an innings. Against South Africa in Brisbane, he scored two overs in both innings. In the World Test Championship chase, Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja bowled an over.

Five times he took two or three wickets in successive overs, and in Sydney he would have done so six times had it not been for a dropped catch.

His attempt to take three wickets in three balls in this match was as close as he could get without completing it. Rishabh Pant gifted the first wicket with a half-hearted pull, no foot movement and no balance as he brought it to middle, but the scoring suffocation, to which Boland contributed at 1.55 runs an over, played a role. Nitish Kumar Reddy had just completed his Melbourne century, but with the first ball he was unable to deal with the strong bounce that Boland created as the ball moved away.

From left-handed to right-handed to left-handed, Boland rarely had trouble landing a hit right away. The ball to Washington Sundar, who was covering, passed so close to the edge that they would have whispered to each other as it climbed even more absurdly, causing the batsman to flinch and land in the wicketkeeper’s face. Alex Carey dropped it, but let’s not dwell on it.

Boland, who had to make do with a life on the margins, was once again so close. Then he resumed his shy demeanor, picked up his cap and walked away to tremendous applause, becoming the lonely person with fine legs again. Bathed in validation, he waves lightly, too shy for the attention even after being just an inch away from a Test hat-trick.