GEORGIE PARKER: Scott Boland deserves a statue but not a starting spot

There are few things harder in professional sport than being a good teammate when you’re not being selected. And I wonder whether there is anyone in Australian sport who does it better than Scott Boland.

As Australia prepares for its next Test in Cape Town, Boland once again finds himself in a familiar position. Despite taking five wickets at an economy rate of just 2.79 and contributing a valuable 40 runs with the bat, everything seems to be pointing towards him being dropped. Again. For most players, that would be an incredibly difficult pill to swallow, but Boland has spent the best part of five years making an art form out of being the unlucky one.

Before the series, he conceded that playing every Test wasn’t “100 per cent realistic”, an extraordinary admission from someone who has repeatedly proven he belongs at the highest level. Boland has essentially become Australia’s insurance policy, the man they call upon when one of the big three fast bowlers, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc or Josh Hazlewood, is unavailable. More often than not, he delivers, so often producing performances that would make him an automatic selection in almost any other Test side in the world. Yet when everyone is fit again, he’s expected to quietly make way, and he does with a smile on his face.

There’s something particularly cruel about being dropped when you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Most athletes can accept being overlooked when their performances don’t warrant selection, but being told you’re good enough, performing like you’re good enough, and still finding yourself carrying the drinks? That’s a different kind of rejection altogether. It’s a bit like being an Australian leg-spinner during the Shane Warne era where you’re just unfortunate enough to be playing behind the best to ever do it.

Having spent years in professional sport, I have enormous admiration for the way Boland appears to handle it. Athletes are competitive creatures, driven by an almost irrational belief we deserve to be playing, and when someone tells us otherwise our first instinct isn’t always to respond gracefully. Just look at Nathan Lyon’s prickly response after being left out at the Gabba last year. And I don’t blame him one bit. I’d be filthy too. In fact, I know there were times throughout my own career when I struggled to hide my disappointment at not being selected. You don’t suddenly become happy about sitting on the sidelines just because someone tells you it’s in the team’s best interests.

During my time with the Hockeyroos, we had a second goalkeeper who would have walked into almost any other national team in the world. Unfortunately for her, Australia already had arguably the best goalkeeper in the world at the time, and because hockey teams generally only select one goalkeeper for major tournaments to allow for more field players on the bench, she was constantly the unlucky one. Instead of allowing her disappointment to affect the group, she somehow made everyone around her better.

She was first into meetings, constantly helping teammates prepare and doing everything she could to improve both herself and the team. She never got to compete at an Olympic Games, instead only travelling as an emergency which is one of the hardest things to do. Be at the Games, but outside the village, watching your friends live a childhood dream. I can confidently say however, she was integral to the success and wellbeing of so many players who did. I also know that I, along with plenty of others, would have struggled to show the same grace. It’s easy to be a great teammate when everything is going your way. Being one when you’re the person missing out is an entirely different skill.

And that’s what I see when I watch Scott Boland. We talk endlessly about the importance of team culture in professional sport, usually through fairly meaningless clichés about putting the team first. But this is what it actually looks like. It’s the bloke who has every reason to be filthy about missing selection, yet refuses to let his disappointment become a distraction for everyone else.

This generation of Australian cricket has been blessed with Nathan Lyon, one of the greatest off-spinners the game has seen, and a fast-bowling attack featuring Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood that will be remembered among our finest.

But Scott Boland, to me, represents a generation of cricketers whose loyalty to Test cricket and his country will become increasingly difficult to replicate.

Scott Boland might be unlucky, but Australian cricket is extraordinarily lucky to have him. Build the man a statue.