Australian leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson was recently named the vice captain of Queensland, and he will be leading the side in both the One-Day Cup and the Sheffield Shield in ace batter Marnus Labuschagne’s absence due to international duties.
Johan Botha, the head coach, and Joe Dawes, the high performance manager, took over as leaders of Queensland, and it appears that Swepson was given the captaincy as part of their radical change.
It’s important to remember that Labuschagne succeeded Usman Khawaja as the team’s permanent captain. Additionally, Swepson was given the captaincy hat by the management, despite the fact that wicketkeeper Jimmy Peirson had been the deputy captain for a while.
Mitchell Swepson will captain Queensland for the first time in the season’s first One-Day match against Tasmania
“In the winter, we had a lot of conversations about leadership, and Jimmy and him [Swepson] handled everything really well and the group thought highly of them. As a leader, I believe that’s crucial because the group would genuinely play for them and appreciate what they saw. And that’s definitely how we approached it. Jimmy’s ability is known to us. Outside of the pitch, he will always be Jimmy the same Jimmy. Thus, botha said, “We simply felt that we wanted to develop another leader.”
Although Swepson is a consistent player in Queensland’s lineup, he hasn’t participated in a 50-over match for the Bulls since November 2022. But when Swepson gets his chance against Tasmania, he’ll make good on the trust the higher-ups placed in him.
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“I believe that captaining a One-Day team as a spinner is simpler because the rules of the game essentially dictate when to bowl.” Will he have the courage to deliver the 17th over in the Shield game on the first day of a four-day cricket match, though? However, that’s the direction we’ll keep pushing him in order to engage with the game. He only needs to trust himself because we trust him as a member of the team and as staff,” Botha said.