'I'd like to be able to bowl more of my style' - Brendan Doggett hopeful of more elaborate Test role after Ashes debut run

Australian seamer Brendan Doggett has expressed his desire to play a more prominent role with the ball in the Test side after making his debut in the 2025-26 Ashes.

The 32-year-old was handed a debut in the first Test in Perth, with injuries to the likes of skipper Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Sean Abbott and Jhye Richardson. He picked up seven wickets in the two matches he played, with best innings figures of 3 for 51 in the second innings. Doggett was used as an enforcer, relying on his pace and accuracy to launch a barrage of short balls, a tactic which has often been employed against the English side. The seamer stated that he was not expecting to be used in that role.

"I sort of got to the point there where every time I got handed the ball during the Ashes, it was probably more for short-ball tactic stuff. Which is fine, I wasn't foreign to it, but it just probably wasn't something I was expecting to be predominantly bowling I guess. But I'm not complaining I'd do it again any day of the week. if I'm playing for Australia, wearing a Baggy Green, I'll do whatever I'm asked to do," Doggett said, as quoted by cricket.com.au.

Doggett, who recently became the youngest in Australia's current crop of centrally contracted red-ball seam bowlers, hopes to play a more prominent role in the future but acknowledged the elation of being able to play an Ashes series on home soil.

"But I'd like to get another crack and probably be able to bowl more of my style, like I do for South Australia. I reflect upon it and think about the things I did well: I was able to perform a niche role I guess, and do it well enough, then to be part of an Ashes series at home, arguably one of the bigger ones we've had in the last decade, it's a dream come true," he added.

Of the 290 balls Doggett bowled in the series, 145 of them, a whopping 50 per cent, were short balls. His seven wickets have all come as catches on the leg side, which is something the seamer wants to change in the future. A predominant out-swing bowler, Doggett has picked up 203 wickets in 53 first-class games and made the Aussie side on the back of stellar performances in the Sheffield Shield for South Australia.

"I haven't taken a Test wicket on the off-side yet – they've all been leg-side or off short balls. But I think that's every fast bowler's dream, either to take someone's off-stump or nick them off, they're the glory wickets, so to be able to take one of those, I'll probably be able to celebrate it a bit better than I celebrated my first Test wicket," he concluded.