West Australian spinner Corey Rocchiccioli has his sights set on the Australian Test squad in the future after spending time in India working on his spin bowling during the off season.
The 26-year-old made his mark with the ball in WA’s successful Sheffield Shield campaign last season, finishing as the third highest wicket taker, with 46 wickets across 21 innings including five four-wicket hauls.
Australia are scheduled to play a two-test series in Sri Lanka in January next year, with the Aussies likely to turn to spin due to the spin-friendly nature of the pitches over there.
With Rocchiccioli being the top performing spinner of last year’s Shield Series, a test squad call up isn’t completely out of the question for the West Aussie. However, this possiblity is not his sole focus for the minute – with all eyes on WA’s Shield title defence.
“That’s certainly something that I’ve always wanted to do and that’s something that I’ll always want to continue to do,” Rocchiccioli told SportFM.
“Unfortunately, I don’t get to pick the tours as I get to go on, but I certainly get to pick what I do in the next six shield games. I think that if I’m doing the best I can and have the results that I’ve had at the back end of last year and last year as a whole, I think that puts me in a frame to be selected.
“I don’t get to pick the teams, but I’d love to be on every test tour. It’s not that long ago you guys were speaking to me as a rookie player. I hadn’t played many games.
“It has happened fast and I just want to continue to put my best foot forward for Western Australia because at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing. It’s something that I can keep my hands on and control as best I can.”
If selected, the off-spinner will be in familiar territory over in the subcontinent after spending time with at a training camp with the MRF Training Academy in India.
Rocchiccioli was one of eight Australian first-class cricketers selected for the 12-day camp, where batsmen and bowlers spent 12 days acclimatising to the unique traits that come with playing on pitches in the Indian subcontintent.

Rocchiccioli has called it an ‘incredble experience’ to practice a different style of play.
“It’s completely different to the Australian wickets that we see and we grow up with. It’s red clay, it’s dirt. There’s still red clay on my white pads two months on from the trip,” he said.
“It’s an incredible opportunity to get over there and practice on my square seam deliveries, which is a technical term for just basically trying to get as much sidespin as I can off the wicket.
“So just learning what it’s like to go with ebbs and flows and momentum in those sort of games and how they play is completely different to the way the Australians play, so just an incredible trip all around.”
Western Australia’s Shield title defence begins on Tuesday against Queensland at the WACA Ground, with Rocchiccioli set to be a lock in the playing 11.
Meanwhile, the One-Day Cup started in late September, with WA’s title defence getting off to a shaky start after losing their first two matches and finding themselves down the bottom of the standings.
However, Rocchiccioli described the preseason leading into the 2024/25 summer as exciting, and is optimistic about the youth in the WA squad.
“We’ve seen some young kids starting to really take the next step forward in their development. I’m still not that old at 26, but there’s certainly some young kids coming through at 18-19 that are really exciting,” he said.
“Mahli Beardman getting called up to the Aussie selection was incredible, but the groundwork he put in in pre-season, watching him and Josh Vernon go about it has been really impressive. They’ve both put on some muscle and got their bodies in places that they’re going to be able to reap rewards in the next couple of years.
“I think the most impressive part of seeing our young batters develop, Cooper, Teague, Jayden and Fanno (Sam Fanning), those four in particular, they’ve been really impressive with the way they’ve gone about it. I can’t wait to see them get their opportunities as the months go on in this season.”
IMAGE: AAP Photos