50 hours, 33000 kms, 6 deliveries - Australian Cameron Boyce's single over in England

Boyce was smashed for 19 runs in his only over of the game

Australian leg-spinner Cameron Boyce will return to Australia later today after having possibly set the world for the most distance covered to bowl a single over, according to Cricket Australia’s official website. The 26-year-old was picked only for the one-off T20 international against England and ended up having a match to forget as he was smashed for 19 runs in his only over.

Australia announced their squad for the limited-overs leg of their England tour on August 12 and the most baffling team news was Boyce’s omission from the five-match ODI series which is set to begin on Thursday. The thought process behind choosing a player just for a single T20 game by an away side was questioned at the time itself, and in the aftermath of the hammering Joyce received at the hands of Eoin Morgan and Moeen Ali, it’s certainly creating headlines.

Boyce flew from Brisbane to Cardiff, a distance of roughly 16500 km, and is set to fly back the same distance taking the hours tally past 50 hours and adding to his recent visit to India as part of the Australia A team, the youngster has certainly been travelling the world a great deal.

Boyce was even in danger of missing out as a bowler as despite being the side’s specialist spinner he was the eighth bowler to be introduced into the attack, coming in to bowl in the 14th over. In the end, he might have hoped that it would have been better that way around as his and Shane Watson’s 22-run over proved decisive in the match which England edged by five runs.

Ali hit Boyce for two sixes and a boundary in the over and brought up his fifty during his onslaught against the leg-spinner. The over fetched 19 runs in total and he was not used further as expected.

Despite the nightmarish over, Steven Smith, Australia’s stand-in T20 skipper in the place of the injured Aaron Finch claimed that Boyce was still an integral part of the nation’s plans for the 2016 World T20 to be held in India.

“Today was quite a tough time to bowl, with two left-handers going. But he was over here for one game and I thought he deserved a crack and tried to get a wicket. It was quite hard going for him and they got him away a bit, but he'll certainly learn from that and continue to get better,” Smith said sympathising with the bowler.

Boyce had figures of 4-0-10-2 against Pakistan in his last T20 outing for Australia and Smith is confident that he will prove a handful in India as well.

“When we went to Dubai, which are probably similar conditions to what we're going to get in India for the World Cup, I thought he bowled really nicely there,” he said.

The social media has been quick to feed on the topic and has thrown up some interesting tweets.

If I got this right, Cameron Boyce flew 24 hrs to bowl 0/19 (1)?

— Dennis Does Cricket (@DennisCricket_) August 31, 2015

@CricketAus cricket australia has more money than brains but oh well we do love 20/20

— TRAV LENTSMENT (@ZAZLKID) September 1, 2015

@ZAZLKID seems absurd surly they can use him for odi series even as 12th man

— Mr Awesome Guy (@howzatdoctor) September 1, 2015