Australian cricket's embrace of a new cult hero in "Tall" Paul Walter was underlined by his inclusion in the Big Bash League's team of the tournament on Thursday, selected by the eight BBL head coaches. It is not long since Walter was a journeyman county stalwart, but a brief conversation with Jos Buttler 18 months ago sparked a career transformation.
Walter was recruited by Manchester Originals as a replacement player for the Hundred in 2022 after a 400-run Vitality Blast season and was initially seen as a powerful middle-order batter. He had bowled a solitary over in Essex's T20 campaign but, after Originals' first match, Buttler sounded him out.
"He was just like, 'are you still tweaking a few out? What's the situation?' And I said, 'I'm ready to go. Chuck me the ball,'" Walter recalls. "I hadn't really bowled for two or three years before that and I'd only really just got to being bowlable. But the first time Jos threw me the ball I did well and then I got a roll."
His idiosyncratic left-arm medium pace deceived batters across the country and, from nowhere, Walter emerged as the Hundred's joint-highest wicket-taker. After losing their first three games, Originals won six in a row to reach the final. "I didn't even have bowling on my radar when I turned up, to be honest," he says.
"When I was younger I came through as a bowler, and I went on the ECB pace programme which was a lot of technical work. But then I had injuries around that time and when I was coming back, I struggled with nailing what technique to use and then just fell away. I lost loads of pace and struggled to get the ball to do what I wanted it to do. I'd just lost confidence with it, really."
Walter's improvement with the bat kept him in the Essex side across formats but he only bowled sporadically. "I just needed to figure out exactly how my body works. I'm a big guy, so it's not always as easy as going by the textbook: I have to feel things through. It was almost like taking a break gave my body a chance to forget the technical stuff and just run in and bowl how I wanted to, rather than worrying about what was going where."
He credits Mick Lewis, Essex's Australian bowling coach, with helping him to rediscover his control with the ball. "He's been a great help to me: simplifying everything, helping me to find my old muscle memory and to trust myself. I started to feel like the ball was coming out nicely, and then it was just a fact of actually doing it."
Walter's performances in the Hundred across two seasons piqued the interest of Charles Evans, Brisbane Heat's analyst, before September's BBL draft and he has thrived over the last six weeks. "I think we've got the best bowling unit in the competition," he says. "I feel like I complement the rest of the attack quite well and we've been good at managing games."
Heat have used six bowlers with clear roles: Xavier Bartlett and Michael Neser share the new ball, Walter combines with spinners Matt Kuhnemann and Mitchell Swepson through the middle phase, and Spencer Johnson closes things out for them. "Kuhny and Sweppo have bowled so well through the middle that teams have come hard at me, which is probably what you want with my style of bowling," Walter says.
"I've worked a lot on my defensive bowling, trying to figure out how to get batters off strike and trying to keep the ball away from the shorter pockets. I normally bowl the overs where the right-handers are hitting to the short leg side, so I've had to get quite clever with getting them to hit to the other side of the ground. I do a lot of work off the field figuring out what I'm going to do in different situations."
Walter has performed his trademark aeroplane celebration after each of his 13 wickets and has been a hit with the Heat's fans. "It was Eoin Morgan who started calling me 'Tall Paul' on Sky in the Hundred but it's taken on a new level out here," he laughs. "I'm not complaining: if everyone's shouting that at me on the streets instead of abuse then I'll take it."
The Heat face Sydney Sixers in the BBL's qualifier on Friday, and Walter is their only remaining overseas player with Sam Billings and Colin Munro both in the UAE for the ILT20. "We've still got our original bowling unit, and the batters that have come in for us have been unlucky not to be playing anyway," he says. "When you reach the knockouts, it's just about holding your nerve."
Walter hopes to return to the BBL next year, not least because he got engaged shortly before Christmas to his Australian partner, who is based in Melbourne: "It's been a busy few months. This is definitely the best competition for my life as a whole, so I'm glad it's all gone well." A trophy next week would top it off.