Tim David has made his name as a death hitter. Seeing him walking out to bat in the powerplay of a T20 international is jarring.
Until July 2025 he had only faced 12 balls in the powerplay when playing for Australia, all when elevated up the order in rain-shortened matches. In July 2025 he walked out at No. 5 in Basseterre to face the last ball of the powerplay and thumped it for four on his way to an Australian record-breaking 37-ball unbeaten century. Three days later at the same venue, all 12 balls of his innings came in the powerplay; he hit his fourth ball for four and four of his next seven for six before being out in the fifth over for 30.
It worked on the batter-friendly postage stamp in Saint Kitts and Nevis. Could it work on Australian pitches with large boundaries? The answer came in Australia's next match.
David walked into bat in Darwin to face the second ball of the fourth over. Australia were 30 for 3 against South Africa. He defended the first ball from Kagiso Rabada, who had taken two of the three wickets to fall, before charging at the second, launching the 140kph good-length delivery over the long straight boundary. In the next over he carved Corbin Bosch over cover for four and then over long-off for six. He scored 18 off 7 in the powerplay. Australia were 70 for 4 amid a flurry of questions on the broadcast as to whether they had been too reckless. In the end, David went on to make 83 off 52, facing the most balls of his T20 career, and Australia would post a score that led to a 17-run win.
The following game he made 50 off 24 at No. 4. David was officially a middle-order batter.
The seeds of his move up the order were sown in 2024. The introduction of the Impact sub in the IPL had relegated David to as low as No. 8 in three matches for Mumbai Indians, making it near impossible for him to have an impact. Not long after that, at the 2024 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean, Australia failed to make the semi-finals. In their review of the tournament, Australia's brains trust pondered if they had under-utilised their best power-hitter in conditions where he had previously excelled, in the CPL. David did not bat in two of Australia's first five matches. Then in their must-win Super Eight clash against India, he did not walk out until the 15th over of the chase, needing 71 off 35, and he was out in the 18th as the last recognised batter, with too many to get and only the tail available as support.
David's personal batting coach, Perth-based Jim Allenby, a former allrounder who had a 12-year career for three English counties, and played in the PSL and for Western Australia in the state Big Bash, had had conversations with him about finding a way to get some opportunities up the order in a franchise tournament somewhere. "One of the best players in the world facing limited balls in a T20 didn't make a lot of sense," Allenby says.
The issue was that David, partly because of his success in the finisher role, had been type-cast.
"From his time in two-day and four-day cricket with WA, he can bat," Allenby says. "He'd be a fine four-day cricketer still. He probably doesn't have the attention span. But ability-wise, it's not like it's difficult for him to play a different role. Just because he's good at smacking it from ball one doesn't mean it's all he can do."
What is little known about David's career is that even prior to his stint in Associate cricket with Singapore, he was contracted with Western Australia. He never played a first-class game for WA, but turned out for them in Cricket Australia's Futures League state Second XI competition and made 137 from 193 deliveries in a four-day game against South Australia in 2017, batting three spots above current team-mate Cameron Green, a man with two Test centuries.
David just needed the chance to bat a little longer in a T20 to prove his capabilities. That came via Hobart Hurricanes in the BBL early last year. In his first opportunity at No. 5 in that tournament, he walked in at 59 for 3 after 6.1 overs and thumped 68 unbeaten from 38 to seal the chase of 165 inside 17 overs.
Hurricanes went on to win their first BBL title. Australia's hierarchy were sold. Six months later he made his first T20 century, off 37 balls, helping Australia chase 215 in 16.1 overs.
Allenby, who also works with Marcus Stoinis and has been regularly seconded in to assist Australia's coaching group under Andrew McDonald when the team is in Perth, says David did not need to change much in his training for his move up the order.
"Often when he was coming in at six or seven, or even eight at times, the best bowler would always get brought back on pretty early in those innings," Allenby said. "Whether it was Jasprit Bumrah or Rashid Khan, whoever it was in the team would always come on to try and get him out, because the opposition knew how important he was. Coming in at four or five, the better bowlers are generally still on, or they'll keep them on that extra over. So it wasn't a huge shift in training.
"After [313] games now, he's seen most situations.
"The thing I'm probably most pleased about the last couple of years is, he's gone back to being aggressive, taking risks and backing his skill. It's probably more that mindset shift, to be honest, having the confidence to play that way in all situations. The mechanics of his swing haven't changed a lot over the years."
David's powerplay batting was stunning in 2025. He scored 97 runs from 45 balls for one dismissal in T20Is. He and Green were the two fastest scorers in the world in that phase in T20I cricket in 2025, among those who faced 30 balls or more.
But the flow-on effect of him starting in the powerplay has been incredible for Australia. The team scored at 10.43 in overs seven through 12 in 2025, over 1.5 runs per over faster than the next quickest team in that phase, South Africa.
Having David set at the end of the powerplay has meant that he can attack the spinners, who often start their spells the moment five men are allowed out. Of those who have faced more than 40 balls in the 7-to-12 phase, only Dewald Brevis scored faster than David's 12.3 runs per over, but he got out ten times to David's four in those overs. Australia had three of the five fastest batters in the world in that period in David, Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Marsh, and five of the top ten when you add Mitchell Owen and Josh Inglis.
A game against India in Hobart late in the year was a prime example of how David is reshaping Australia's batting. He walked in at 14 for 2 in the third over. Instead of rebuilding, he scored 11 off eight Bumrah deliveries in the powerplay, including two boundaries, in a game where Bumrah conceded just 26 from four overs. David scored 26 off 14 in the powerplay in total. In the first over outside the powerplay, Axar Patel's first of the match, he hit him for six twice. In the 11th, he hit Varun Chakravarthy for six twice. He was on for another century when he fell for 74 off 38 to a good catch on the rope after being starved of the strike. Had he batted for another five overs, Australia might have set a winning score.
But just as he did in the West Indies, and to South Africa, his ability to hit spin in the immediate overs post-powerplay is changing Australia's approach as a batting unit. He has also been happy to farm the strike to spin even with established batters at the other end in the middle overs, regularly turning down singles to hit multiple sixes in the over against match-ups that he likes.
"The volume of work he put into playing balls off the top of the stumps, which is where all the best spinners bowl, was quite remarkable actually," Allenby says. "It gave me a very sore elbow, so we had to find a way to do it on the bowling machine. But that was really just a repetition of a really good base and a good swing off the top of the stumps. Looking at guys like Heinrich Klaasen, who's best in the world at it, I think Tim's obviously got there, and a couple of innings in the West Indies, when he's hitting spinners off the top of the stumps - he couldn't do that probably two or three years ago.
"In terms of the faster bowlers bowling at the top of the stumps, once again, it's more of a shift in mindset to go rather than let them bowl, sometimes you've just got to take an early risk to make the rest of your innings easier to play."
The challenge now for David and Australia is, can they succeed with that all-out aggression in the heat of a cut-throat T20 World Cup in spinning conditions? They won ten of 11 completed games against West Indies, South Africa, New Zealand and India in 2025 before the Hobart loss. Since then, they were spun out by India to lose the series on the Gold Coast, and then suffered the same fate against spin in Pakistan last week to lose 3-0. But David and Maxwell missed the Pakistan tour, while Inglis and Stoinis played just one game apiece.
Providing David is fit - he is coming off a hamstring strain in the BBL - the band will be back together in Sri Lanka and India and it will be all guns blazing again with David leading the charge from as early as possible. Whatever the outcome, Australia have never been more fun to watch.