For Peter Handscomb, the past three months of his international career have been nothing less than a dream. Since making his debut in the longest format of the game, everything the batsman has touched till now, has turned into gold. He made his debut in the pink ball Test against South Africa last year, when Australian selectors made oodles of changes in the squad. Handscomb was one of the players to be called in and he grabbed the opportunity right away with a half-century in the first innings.

He got an another chance in the Test series against Pakistan and the right-handed batsman smacked 344 runs and by the end of the series, his average was up to a magical mark of 99.75.

An injury to Chris Lynn proved to be a boon for Handscomb as he got an opportunity to make his debut in the ODI format as well. Here, the batsman with a batting average pretty much similar to Don Bradman, made an early impact as he played a match winning knock of 82 in the third ODI against Pakistan, to help Australia take 2-1 lead in the five-match series.

A well-settled batsman now looks to seal his place in the ODI team as well as he says, “I understand my one-day record in domestic cricket isn’t great. I guess I just need to be able to find a way to score off more balls.

“In the longer format, you can let a lot go and wait until the ball is in your zone to hit.

“Whereas here, you need to start fabricating a few shots and making a few things up, which I’m working on. And trying to score quicker.”

Further, he feels that he was lucky to get a place in the team, due to an injury to Chris Lynn, “If they had been fit, I wouldn’t be here, and this opportunity wouldn’t have occurred. So in that sense, I’ve been very lucky as well. If I keep getting an opportunity in the middle order in the ODI team, that would be great.”

The fourth and the penultimate ODI between Australia and Pakistan is to be played on January 22 at Sydney. The home team will look to win the game and clinch the series.