Ryan Rickelton Ready to Realise Childhood Dream in WTC Final Against Australia

Playing Test cricket against Australia at Lord's in the upcoming World Test Championship final in front of family and friends is a boyhood dream coming true for Proteas opening batter Ryan Rickelton.

Playing Australia

About three years ago, Ryan Rickelton could have had the taste of playing against an Australian Test team, however, the national selectors stood in the way.

The left-handed top-order batter had a bad knee. A surgery was recommended by the doctors at Cricket South Africa, but the 28-year-old opted for a different approach to manage the knee injury instead of undergoing what would have been a season-ending surgery.

Rickelton was thus left out of the Proteas Test squad that was scheduled to go down under for a three-match series.

While the Proteas Test were losing badly in Australia, Rickelton was scoring centuries for fun in domestic competitions, with the batter scoring five tons in a matter of weeks.

It was vivid that the left-hander wanted to prove a point that he was fit enough and talented enough to have gone on that tour.

Now, with the World Test Championship final around the corner, the 28-year-old will have his first taste of playing Tests against Australia, having been confirmed by coach Shukri Conrad that he will be opening the batting at Lord's.

Despite the sourness of what happened three years ago, Rickelton feels he has no point to prove.

"Bygones are bygones. It's in the past," said Rickelton.

"I just have a really great opportunity to play against Australia in England in front of my family. They'll all be there, and my friends as well. So, what a cool week that'll be, and if I can contribute with the bat and put in a performance, that'll make it even sweeter."

"I've always watched Australia since I was a young boy, and they've been such a dominant force in world cricket for a long time. So this is a dream come true for me."

The backing

It is safe to say that Rickelton now has a defined role in the Test team, having found himself floating up and down the batting order since making his debut a few years ago.

Following his double century against Pakistan in the New Year's Test, in Conrad's eyes, the left-handed batter had done enough to solidify a spot as an opening batter, knocking down Tony de Zorzi, who had been playing that role before him.

"I'm a bit nervous, it's a new opportunity for me. It was a new opportunity to open the batting in the New Year's Test, let alone the final against Australia. But, in saying that, I just want to bat, so if that's where I need to do my job, then hopefully I can prepare accordingly and try to set the game up for the team and dig in for a period of time," Rickelton told SportsBoom.co.za. 

"With a new ball, generally it requires a bit of searching, which offers up some runs, so hopefully I can do myself justice and face a lengthy or a good sum of balls and back myself. If I face a few dozen deliveries, I'll be able to get some runs as well."

The Zimbabwe warm-up

Having landed in England over the weekend, the Proteas have started training together as a team. On Tuesday, the side will start their Four-Day warm-up fixture against Zimbabwe as they get ready for next week's final at Lord's.

Rickelton wants to use the warm-up to spend time at the crease.

"I want to always score runs, but at the same time, I want to spend more length of time batting. If you can face 100-plus deliveries, that's always the goal for any batter. So if you can face 100 balls in those conditions, it just gives you time to adjust to what's going to happen," said Rickelton.

"You don't want to score runs in the warm-up game and not in the real game. So I guess for me it's about spending time at the crease, getting workload on the legs and getting workload through decision-making, through right contact points when you're batting, good footwork, all those kinds of things is what I'll be searching for in the warm-up."