Delissa Kimmince isn’t the biggest name in the Australian women’s cricket team. She’s a low-profile character off the field, too. “I’m a grandma,” she smiled after the second one-day match in the Women’s Ashes on Thursday. “Early to bed, early to rise.”
“I find it hard to kill the time in the mornings, and I find it quite draining waiting for the game, so the other day I had a bath and read my book. It just relaxes me and then I don’t play the game before I get here.”
After taking five for 26 to set up an Australian win, though, Kimmince might be encouraged to stay up a bit later to celebrate. The win is Australia’s second in the series, taking them 4-0 up on points in a multi-format arrangement where limited-overs games are worth two points and the solitary Test match four.
Kimmince was almost involved with the previous Ashes tour, listed to visit England to play in the Twenty20 component of the series. Luck went against her when she had to pull out days before the tour with an injured back.
She featured in the home Ashes of late 2017 though, and was still seen as a strictly 20-over property – a decent hitter in the lower middle order who could also bowl some useful medium pace. But a string of performances in the World T20 tournament last November brought her into the frame for the 50-over form.
Kimmince had featured in a handful of one-dayers for Australia as a young player in 2008 and 2009, then a solitary game in 2014, before finally making it back in the side this year. She had no expectations though of featuring in the Ashes XI.
“I can count how many ODIs I’ve played. It’s been short-lived for me. But to be in the starting team and out there with the girls is an awesome achievement, and for me to go out there and take five wickets today and do my job for the team, I can’t ask for any more than that.”
The job was certainly done thoroughly. First in the 24th over Kimmince knocked over Natalie Sciver, England’s most dangerous ball-striker, with a ball that skidded through and trapped her lbw trying to hit across the line.
Then at the end of the innings, with England looking to hit out, Kimmince caused a collapse of five for 30, running through four more players to bowl England out short of their 50 overs for 217.
It was a performance based on her T20 principles of giving nothing to hit, and the situation fitted her style perfectly. And in contests where opponents might focus most on the high-profile seamers Megan Schutt and Ellyse Perry, their approach to Kimmince can play into her hands.
“I think sometimes teams think I’m a bowler they can target, having the pace off a little bit more,” she said. “I know for me it means I have to be right on my lengths where I want to bowl, otherwise it seems to go over the boundary.”
But that is what she does: bowls just back of a length and straight, meaning she is threatening the stumps while being hard to get under, and that batters are forced to play across the line. The real danger is that she marries that consistency with what seems like half a dozen variations of slower balls as well as her on-pace delivery.
“I have a few that I like to mix up between. I just know that they probably know my slower balls are coming, that’s what I do in a lot of the T20 games. So I try and keep them guessing and at the same time try and keep it simple, which can be difficult.”
It’s a simple approach and it works, making her extremely hard to attack with sustained success. And that’s what is behind her recent elevation to becoming a two-format player, with the chance to add Test cricket to that resume in just a couple of weeks.
Whether her bowling style suits the patience game of the longer form will be one relevant question, though Kimmince also offers plenty with the bat. She got Australia over the line in some tricky final overs in the first match, and was due in next in the second when Beth Mooney and Jess Jonassen spared her having to walk to the middle. Kimmince was still wearing her batting pads when she collected her player of the match award for her bowling.
The player who didn’t imagine she would be in this 50-over team has now played the key hand in their first two wins, and the suggestion from captain Meg Lanning before the series was that given the lack of opportunity to prepare, Test selection would have to be based on what was working in the other format.
The prospect suddenly looks a very good chance. And why not? Kimmince’s current author of choice for those bath retreats is Michelle Obama, someone who could pass on a lot of lessons about dreaming big and getting there.