After taking three wickets in his first five balls of first grade last year as a 16-year-old, Malone made a name for himself three weeks ago in second grade by snaring all 10 wickets in the second innings against Sydney University to finish with the stunning match figures of 16-138 from 38.2 overs.

Malone then made it his mission to show off his skills to Watson in a rare net appearance at Sutherland training on Thursday.

According to club official Tom Iceton, the youngster "beat Watto with three wrong 'uns in a row" and made the 59-Test veteran look silly a number of times.

" His wrong 'un is one of the hardest to pick that I've ever played against," Watson said. "Batting in the nets I found him very challenging." 

After his net session, Watson took Malone aside and let him know just how impressed he was with his tweakers – telling Malone he had been unable to pick his wrong 'un. The kid from Jannali, in Sydney's south, took Watson's words of support into the weekend's match against Hawkesbury at Glenn McGrath Oval.

" I was pretty stoked," Malone said of bowling to Watson. "I was really happy to get feedback off a batter like that; to say that he couldn't pick them. It's made me a bit more confident bowling it in a game knowing it is hard to play and I can hide it.  He was telling me that you don't need to worry about your height if you have a good stock ball and a variation ball that's hard to pick." 

Malone's wrong 'un wreaked havoc in the first-grade match – he finished with 6-42 off 22.3 overs to take his season tally across all grades (including Poidevin-Gray Shield for under-21 players) to 37 wickets from 127.5 overs at the miserly average of 12.1.

"Even at first slip on Saturday, standing there trying to pick his wrong 'un for my own benefit next time I face him in the nets, it was still very challenging," Watson said. "To see a 17-year-old be able to bowl leg spin with as much control as he does is such a hard skill in cricket.  It's a pleasure to play with a young star of the future."

Malone is quite short – standing at just 165 centimetres – but is doing everything he can to keep a lid on the hype surrounding the leg-spinners he began practising at age 13 after previously bowling "powder puff medium pacers".

" There's a little bit more pressure in a way," Malone said. "I feel like I've got to keep performing otherwise I just look like that kid who's a one-hit-wonder. It [the six-wicket haul] shows it wasn't just a one-off thing and that I can back it up.  I'm pretty stoked with what's happened. It's been a really good patch. It's really hard to do anything wrong at the moment really, it's hard to explain. Everything's falling into place and going the way I want it to."

Malone was not selected in the NSW Metro team to play in the under-19 national championships in Adelaide mainly because the squad was picked before his purple patch. The Year 12 student has ambitions of pursuing cricket professionally, but is just hoping to cement his spot in Sutherland's firsts side for the time being.

One of his biggest fans is Watson, who feels " feel incredibly old" playing with someone who was born in 1998 – the year he finished high school – said Malone reminded him of Brad Hogg in terms of possessing a ball that is so hard to pick. 

" It's a similar arm speed that Devlin's got [to Hogg] which makes it certainly more challenging to be able to pick the difference between a normal ball and a wrong 'un," Watson said.