When Scott Boland entered the SCG for the fifth Test against India, there was a possibility it could have been his last for Australia.

By the time he left the field with four wickets late on day one, Australia’s cult-hero had made a compelling case to remain part of the team’s first-choice attack.

Boland’s 4-31 on the opening day in Sydney has not only put Australia on the path to regaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, but potentially extended his own Test career.

In the past 60 years, Glenn McGrath remains the only Australian paceman to play beyond his 36th birthday.

Scott Boland will reach that mark in April.

There is also a world where Australia play only one out-and-out quick in Sri Lanka and two in West Indies this year.

A World Test Championship final also looks likely at Lord’s, but Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins would all hope to be fit to face South Africa.

Boland’s late-career charge is the stuff of legend, but selectors have regularly only used him as back up to the big three.

In 35 Tests since Boland’s magical debut at the MCG against England in 2021, Boland has played in 13 of them.

Only once has he been picked when Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood have all been fit and available, in the 2023 Ashes series opener.

If Boland’s career was to end without adding many more to his tally, he could consider himself one of Australian cricket’s unluckiest men.

But Friday at the SCG could serve as the strongest argument yet for him to retain his spot regardless of who is fit.

Once picked as a man who could do the hard yards on flat wickets, Boland has proven his nagging accuracy makes him one of the world’s most dangerous on seaming pitches.

He had the ball on a string on Friday, moved it around and got the four key wickets of Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Yashavi Jaiswal and Nitish Kumar Reddy.

Having passed the 2000-ball mark in Test cricket, Boland now has the 13th-best bowling average in history with 18.88.

That mark puts him above Jasprit Bumrah (19.36), and is the best since Englishman Frank Tyson (18.56) from the 1950s.

Also uncanny is Boland’s ability to get big scalps.

He has now removed Kohli four times, level with the amount of times he has knocked over another of the greats of this era in Joe Root.

“We’ve got pretty set plans on how we want to bowl to him,” Boland said on Fox Cricket about his battle with Kohli after play.

“He leaves a lot and then wants to play the ball a lot once he gets in. Once he’s in we just want to bowl fifth stump to him, and it seems to be working.”

Australia have clearly worked out Kohli in this series.

Their selectors now face a greater challenge in fitting four quicks into three spots if Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood and Boland are all fit at the same time again.