The bait ball lurked. After blasting Cooper Connolly on his pads with a flat ball on leg stump, Rashid Khan pulled the length back a fraction, pushed the ball faster through the air and outside off stump. He could almost imagine the batsman’s response: a cut from the crease, either feathering an edge or dragging the ball onto the stumps. But Connolly imagined the unimagined. He shifted to the back foot but, instead of going horizontal, opened up his body and clubbed him down the ground with a sweet, straight bat-swing — front foot in the air, back foot pivoting like an axis. The hand-speed, the lucid bat-swing and the daring to take on IPL’s well-worn regulars would become hallmarks of Connolly’s match-winning 72 not out on his IPL debut. He spared none — neither Rashid nor Kagiso Rabada, nor later the reformed Prasidh Krishna. His BBL club and state coach Adam Voges has long drooled over his bat-swing. “He’s got a beautiful swing of the bat. He doesn’t need a lot of width to …