Stoinis 2.0 mixes brains with the brawn

Marcus Stoinis must have spent nearly 10 minutes by himself, focusing purely on getting his body alignment in order. It started with his head position, trying to make sure it was straight and still with every virtual delivery he faced. Then came the shoulders, the left one acting like the rudder freeing the right one to enable the burly right-hander to execute a free swing with the bat.

It's the eve of Australia's final league encounter against Scotland at the Daren Sammy Cricket Stadium in St Lucia.

It's hot and steamy and you can see it in how every player's training top is clinging on to their respective bodies owing to some heavy sweating. As a result, Stoinis' biceps seem to be bulging out even more than usual. He's got his pads and gloves on but no helmet. For those 10-odd minutes, all Stoinis seems focused on in the far net, with no bowler or ball around, is what he's visualising in his head. In the adjoining net, Cameron Green, his like-for-like replacement, is having probably the longest of his always lengthy batting stints at practice. Two nets down, Tim David is smashing the leather of every ball he faces, yelling out, "Sometimes you need to live dangerously," to his coaches.

Stoinis is in his own zone. He soon walks away before returning some 10 minutes later, this time with his helmet on, and seemingly ready to face the bowlers.

He's not done visualising yet. This time he stands outside the net in which David is finishing up and starts shadow practicing his reverse sweeps. Each time with great attention being paid to where his head is in relation to how his hands are coming through. Stoinis then goes across to head coach Andrew McDonald for a quick chat about what looks like his bat angle as he plays the reverse sweep. And only then does the right-hander walk into the net to face the bowlers. Not surprisingly he proceeds to practice at least two dozen reverse-sweeps before he seems convinced enough to move on to bullying the ball and the net bowlers for the next 20 minutes or so.

It was a lovely glimpse into the work that goes into refining the skill that is needed to utilise the natural power that Stoinis does possess, and the power that does get talked up almost exclusively whenever his batting is being discussed. But there has always been more to him than what meets the eye, even if what meets the eye is often difficult to look past.

And under pressure, for the umpteenth time this tournament already, it was Stoinis who put his hand up to play a crucial hand in his team's march to victory. Just like he had with the bat against Oman in the opening game. Just like he had with ball in hand against England in the vital group-stage clash for Australia.

It was the reverse-sweep, that he'd practiced so diligently, that Stoinis ended up using to break free after the Scottish bowlers had put the stranglehold on the Aussies after having posted a very defendable total on Saturday (June 15) night. Before eventually launching himself into the fast bowlers and spinners alike and targeting the straight boundaries while easily clearing them, much like he had in practice a day prior. While Travis Head anchored the run-chase before cutting loose against Safyaan Sharif in the 16th over of the innings, it was Stoinis' 29-ball 59 that really was the turning point that gave Australia the momentum after the Scots had more or less been on top of them all evening long.

It was a day where it was apt to celebrate the spirit and heart shown by the Scottish players in a must-win game in a tournament that they were yet to lose a match in. It was, however, also the latest illustration of how Marcus Stoinis is the heart and the spirit of this Australian team, both in terms of his performances and also the energy he brings to the team. He does it in so many different ways, not purely based on his brute force.

We saw glimpses of it during the IPL too, when he started to back his ability to manoeuvre the ball around during the start of his innings a lot more, and thereby giving himself the opportunity to break free when he feels like the time is right. You could see it in the way he built his innings against Scotland, never panicking even when the required run-rate kept soaring and even hit around 14-an-over at one point. It's what he did a few times for the Lucknow Super Giants this season, and then as soon as the rate seemed to be on the cusp of reaching worrying limits, he pulled the trigger.

While Stoinis has always been a clean striker of the cricket ball, he seems to have become a lot more clinical with his hitting in recent months, especially after the disappointment of being left out of the side in the business end of the 50-over World Cup that Australia ended up winning. His pre-match routines and propensity to hit more balls than he used to previously seem to be paying off, both for himself and for his team. And to pull off yet another match-winning knock in a game where he wasn't used with the ball was also a sign of how far he's come since November in India in terms of the trust the selectors have in playing him purely as a batter at No 5, who in many ways is tasked with being the fulcrum between the top and middle-lower order in this power-packed Australian batting line-up.

It was an evening where you couldn't break away from the Scotland story completely though. About how close they seemed to get to pulling off their biggest international win as a team. But from an Australian perspective, it was a night where Stoinis re-emerged as the talisman of this world-class team, and not simply because he's all muscle and brute force as the cliches go.