You needed your wits about you as the white balls pinged out of the MCG nets on Saturday during Australia's training session. But in between the big swings and the flying white orbs there was an intriguing battle going on.
A tall offspinner with lengthy blonde hair, who was not part of the ODI squad, was bowling with a red ball to Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. He had Australia's bowling coach and New Zealand's greatest ever Test spinner, Daniel Vettori, alongside him talking tactics and technique.
Even if he's not yet a recognisable face, Corey Rocchiccioli stands out in a crowd. His rapid rise up the ranks from being a grade cricketer who had never been in the pathway system, to a Sheffield Shield star, to an Australia A spinner has turned a lot of heads in Australian cricket.
The 27-year-old is firmly on the radar to tour Sri Lanka with the Test team in the new year. It is for that reason he was flown to Melbourne for a chance to work with Vettori, and bowl to Smith and Labuschagne.
"Hearing from a Test great about how to bowl offspin, particularly in Australia and in Asia, that's something that I got really excited about," Rocchiccioli said on Wednesday.
"I had the opportunity to bowl to Smith and Marnus whilst he was standing next to me. To sort of really pick his brain on how to bowl to world-class batters was something that I took under my wing and wrote in my journal, making sure that I've got that for the back of my mind. Hopefully it's not the last time we catch up. It was an awesome couple of days."
You couldn't wipe the smile off Rocchiccioli's face as he stood on the MCG ahead of his Australia A debut against India A on Thursday. Despite playing 27 Shield matches in the past four seasons and being contracted to both Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades in the BBL, Rocchiccioli has never played a game on the MCG.
"I'm really excited," Rocchiccioli said. "I have had the opportunity to run drinks here that many times, but to not play here yet, it's a bucket list item. I have a little photo on my phone of when I took my old man out here after a Big Bash game. I'm looking forward to being able to step out and bowl on the MCG."
He also gets to bowl to India Test batter KL Rahul, who has been flown out at short notice ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to get a red-ball game under his belt in Australia before joining the main India squad in Perth. Rocchiccioli was asked if he had seen any weaknesses in the 53-Test veteran.
"Nah," Rocchiccioli said. "Probably just bowl your best ball for as long as you can. But he's like any batter, on his day he's going to score a hundred and then some days he makes a mistake.
"I think he flew in yesterday, and that's a pretty long-haul flight. So maybe he's a little bit jaded and fatigued. But I think it's really exciting that I get to go up another level and bowl to these type of batters. It's on my path to mastery. I've been able to bowl to some really good batters in first-class cricket. Now I get this challenge to do it to Indian players."
Although Australia's selectors have been keen to downplay the selection of the Australia A teams for these two games, particularly given the intrigue around the batting order, Rocchiccioli's inclusion in the second game alongside an attack featuring Test back-up quicks Scott Boland and Michael Neser is instructive.
When Nathan Lyon blew out his calf in the Ashes in 2023, it was Todd Murphy who was the like-for-like replacement. It was Murphy too, who was the second spinner picked in India.
If Lyon blew out his calf at training next week ahead of the Perth Test, Murphy might not be the automatic selection despite being Australia A's spinner in Mackay last week.
No spinner has even come close to Rocchiccioli's 83 wickets in the last four Shield seasons. The next best is Mitchell Swepson with 50. Rocchiccioli has claimed 56 of those at the WACA ground 25.28 and a strike-rate of 53.6, a place where Murphy has one wicket in three innings at a cost of 189 from 45 overs.
Bounce and overspin is Rocchiccioli's biggest weapon. At 6 foot 3 inches, he is made to bowl in Perth where Lyon has an extraordinary record. He may enjoy bowling on the revamped MCG drop-in too, where former WACA curator Matt Page has brought the surface to life with pace and bounce. Although Murphy, with his flatter trajectory and ability to bowl with a square seam has averaged 17.50 in his two games there.
"I actually think I have [square seam] in my armoury already," Rocchiccioli said. "It's just that I just don't bowl it that often. I do bowl it a lot on day one at the WACA.
"It's something that I'm always going to have to develop. I don't use it as often as what Murph does when he's bowling out here and bowling at the Junction [Oval]. So it's actually a really good chance. I've got this game. I've got a Junction game. I've got the SCG in a couple of games time. So I've got the opportunity to develop my square seam."
And he will need it if he is called on for the tour of Sri Lanka. He has done two tours to the MRF academy in Chennai in the last two year's with a CA squad but unlike Murphy, Swepson, Matthew Kuhnemann, and Ashton Agar he has not played in Asia.
He doesn't view his one-off appearance for Australia A as a bowl-off against Murphy or any of the others for a spot on that Sri Lanka tour.
"I hope they just take every offie available, to be honest," Rocchiccioli said. "But no I don't see it as that. I think it's probably more the opposite. It's really exciting the fact that Australian cricket has so many up and coming offspinners. I think you've got me, Murph, you've got Kuhney who took five, Ash is back playing Shield cricket. So yeah, I think it's really exciting that we've got so many spin bowlers playing together, playing against each other, and we're all lifting our own competition."