After a series of statements by top Cricket Australia (CA) officials condemning the doosra as illegal, it seems the Aussies may just have found their very own exponent of the art.

Twenty-year-old Josh Connolly, an aspiring tennis player up until now who faced up to the likes of Bernard Tomic, was recently thrown into the spotlight after representing ACT in Cricket Australia’s Futures league last summer. Connolly, who has christened his doosra “George”, is relocating to Sydney in the hopes of making it to the New South Wales team and eventually, the national team.

“I've really been focusing on George because at the moment the rest of the world is producing these guys who bowl finger-spin both ways but we seem to be struggling to do that,” Sydney Morning Herald quoted Connolly as saying.

“So, I've taken it upon myself to develop one.

“I want to expose it when I play grade in Sydney next year and hopefully take Sydney by storm. I started work on it under [ACT coach] Mark Higgs, then by myself in the nets and since I returned to Brisbane my cousin Trent Ryan, who was a spin bowling coach for the Queensland Bulls, has been working with me,” he added.

Connolly was on a different path before he started taking a liking to the art of off-spin bowling. He was a nationally ranked junior tennis player before the financial reality of the sport made a future in it impractical.

When he put his racquet away at the age of 17, Connolly turned his attention to cricket and tried out for the St Paul's school cricket team in Brisbane. He was named the first XI wicketkeeper but a few months later, on the school's tour of England, he bowled off-spin and has never looked back since.

“I haven't come through the traditional pathways,” he said.

“I went from sixth grade to third grade in my first year and the following summer I started off in first grade. I had natural spin straight away that most 'offies' struggle to get, a big turning offie … that's where it all started.”

If Connolly succeeds in coming through the ranks, it will be interesting to see what stance CA takes after its chairman of selectors, John Inverarity,  recently ‘urged caution over producing a generation of chuckers by teaching the doosra to the country’s aspiring spin bowlers.’