Scott Boland has poured cold water on criticism of wicketkeeper Alex Carey standing up to the stumps to his bowling, calling it a calculated move to keep the batsman in their crease.
Carey stood up to the stumps to the Gulidjan quick multiple times during the Boxing Day test to keep young Indian superstar Yashasvi Jaiswal from advancing down the wicket, despite Boland regularly reaching speeds of 135km/h.
Following the move, former test batsman Mark Waugh said on Fox Sports' television coverage that he believed the move was a poor one.
However Boland, who took three wickets on a memorable day five on Monday, said the move was something he backed as a forward thinking, wicket-taking ploy.
"He's [Jaiswal] been trying to take a couple of steps at me when I'm bowling," Boland told cricket.com.au.
"So I just want to get 'Kez' [Carey] up to make sure I know where he's going to be in the crease.
"I don't think he'll be walking out of the crease with the keeper up to the stumps."
Whilst an uncommon sight in Australian cricket, often due to the pace and bounce of the wickets across the country, keeping up to the stumps has long been the fashion in English conditions.
Writing in his autobiography, Adam Gilchrist said he hurt his hands standing up to even the quickest bowlers during his time at the Richmond club in England as a 17-year-old as was the norm.
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Despite comments that it makes the bowler feel 'slow', Boland was unequivocal in his support of Carey's actions.
"I don't mind it as a fast bowler just because I know where he's [the batter] going to be," he said.
"It just keeps him still and that's the main objective of it."
Carey told cricket.com.au that whilst it was a risk, the reward of keeping the Indian batsman's free scoring at bay was worth the reward.
"It was just breaking up his [Jaiswal's] momentum as well," the South Australian keeper/batter said.
"It [the MCG pitch] didn't stay as low as I thought it might have on day five, it still had pretty good carry, so it was more just trying to break up the momentum.
"As batters … we don't always love it when a wicketkeeper comes up to a medium pacer, so I was just trying to break that momentum."
Boland, whose 46 wickets in test cricket have come at 19.46, has been selected for the SCG test, where Australia have dropped popular all-rounder Mitchell Marsh in favour of Tasmanian Beau Webster.
It will be just the 13th appearance in Boland's stop-start test career which has seen him become a cult hero amongst Australian fans, and only the fourth time he has played consecutive tests, with the 'big three' of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood regularly preferred.
The final test of the Border-Gavaskar series starts on Friday, with Australia currently holding a 2-1 lead.
