Cooper ‘Corn-olly: WA young gun ready for US impact

Perth Now

a day ago

Major League Cricket will be like no tournament Cooper Connolly has ever played in.
For starters, his team is called the San Francisco Unicorns, who refer to their supporters as the Sparkle Army.
Games are played in two hubs, one in the converted Oakland Coliseum — made most famous by Brad Pitt's hit baseball film Moneyball — and the other in Dallas.
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The league is followed largely by south Asian expats living in the United States, but word is growing among locals. It includes Indian-owned franchises and is the stars-and-stripes answer to the flurry of Twenty20 tournaments across the globe.
This season, the teams are stacked with the best short-form talent in the world.
That includes Western Australia and Perth Scorchers gun Connolly, playing his first franchise tournament outside of the Big Bash League, months after he took that competition by storm.
Unicorns coach Shane Watson has tipped Connolly to take the MLC by the horn.
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'Cooper Connolly, Australian, he has got some serious power,' he said.
'Middle-order batter, left-hander, he has got some real power and bowls some really nice left-arm orthodox as well. He's got great energy in the field.'
The Unicorns begin their campaign on Thursday morning (WA time) against Jason Behrendorff's Washington Freedom in Oakland.
Connolly is in the side with some familiar faces.
Scorchers teammate and New Zealand international Finn Allen — who Connolly developed a close relationship with during the summer — is in the side, as is fellow Aussie young gun Jake Fraser-McGurk and white-ball teammate Matt Short and Xavier Bartlett. Finn Allen in action for the Scorchers last summer. Credit: Paul Kane / Getty Images
West Australian teammate Brody Couch plays for the Unicorns as a local player, because his mother grew up in upstate New York.
'Cooper coming into the group for — I think — it's his first franchise tournament outside of the Big Bash, so I'm excited to see how he goes,' Allen said.
Pat Cummins is also on a multi-year deal with the Unicorns, but will be unavailable for the tournament because of international commitments.
Scorchers teammate Mitch Marsh will play for the Texas Super Kings, while Marcus Stoinis and David Warner are also involved in the tournament.
Steve Smith will jet in for two matches with the Freedom squeezed between the World Test Championship final and Australia's three-match Test tour of the West Indies
Connolly is not likely to be involved in that series, which starts later this month and overlaps with the MLC.
His selection in Australia's Twenty20 team for matches in the Caribbean from July 21 is not likely to affect his MLC availability, with the final scheduled for July 14 in Dallas.