Follow UsAfter a thrilling six months when he toured Pakistan, India, the United States of America (USA) and the West Indies, Big Bash League's (BBL) young star Mitchell Owen has scaled new heights in his career. Not only did he debut for Australia in the T20 format in the Caribbean, but he has now secured his maiden ODI call-up as well.
After being named in the ODI as well as T20I squad for Australia’s home series against South Africa, Owen revealed that not much is going to change about the way he bats, no matter the format.
"If I am opening the batting or if I'm batting down the order, not much will change. Not much really changes in any form of my cricket. I just try to hit the ball,” Owen was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
“I feel like if I sort of think 'defend', I go into my shell a little bit, and it just doesn't work. So yeah, I'll be keeping that same mindset,”, added the man who smashed 125 runs, batting at six against the West Indies in four innings, at a strike rate of 192.3.
Outside of Australia, ever since his BBL success in 2025, Owen has played in South Africa (SA20 in February), Pakistan (PSL in March-April), India (IPL in May-June), USA (MLC in June-July) and the West Indies in July.
It was only in August that he was back in his home town of Hobart, for whom he hit the sensational hundred in the BBL final and won their maiden BBL title in late January this year.
Speaking about the learning, the 24-year-old said, "What I learned was that I have to find my own process and my own training methods to get ready for each game, because you don't have those chunks of training time to upskill your game, or try new things.”
He was also vocal about how playing in different conditions helped him become a better player.
"On different wickets, sometimes you don't know what you're going to get, but I think going to the subcontinent for Pakistan and India held me in good stead for some of the wickets in the MLC and some of the wickets in the West Indies. It's all just experience and knowledge that I've been able to sort of bank on,” Owen said.
It is most likely that the Tasmanian will make his ODI debut as a finisher who can bowl, replacing Glenn Maxwell in the playing 11 as the latter retired from the format along with Steve Smith and Marcus Stoinis.