Playing for the Kings XI Punjab in this year's IPL, the Bushrangers all-rounder found himself playing against the likes of de Villiers and Virat Kohli. He had already played for his country, playing a Twenty20 and one-day international at the tail end of last year's Ashes tour.

But this was something else altogether, and it inspired him to experiment.

"I played my first scoop against a quick bowler," Stoinis says.

But he'd played one in the nets, right? Wrong.

"[I'd] never played one in the nets.

"But sometimes I think you need to see that from someone else, or you need to be in that circumstance that you create that, and you adapt to that option.

"It was because I was watching guys like de Villiers and that and I was thinking, 'hold on, just give it a crack mate, just give it a bloody crack.' And I did it, and it came off. And I did it in the next game, and I did it in the next game, and I was like, 'why did that take me so long to try that?'

"I just decided that if I was going to try it, I had to commit to it.

"But that comes from watching de Villiers get on one knee and just sweep all the quicks."

Stoinis went from a fringe player to become a regular for the Kings XI before departing the tournament early for family reasons. He topped the club's batting averages while taking eight handy wickets with is medium-pacers, highlighted by 4/15 against the Mumbai Indians, a showing for which he was named man of the match.

"I learnt a lot over there. Big Bash and IPL are bridging the gap between international cricket and domestic cricket, so to be exposed to that, to bowl to de Villiers, and you're in the field when you're watching Kohli bat, you learn bloody quickly, and you see some different things they're doing and how they're taking the game on.

""Even though it's Twenty20, you can learn so much from Twenty20.

"De Villiers seemed to play with no rules, if that makes sense.

"To rock up to the game, their intensity, you could see that they wanted to be the best in the world. I think that's a skill in itself, to rock up to a game when you might be feeling sick, because you are in India and that's what happens – people get sick and that sort of stuff.

"The game's hard enough if you're not in that mindset."

After a brief lay-off he flew to Brisbane to attend a training camp, a lead-in to the Australia A winter series featuring South Africa A, India A and a Cricket Australia National Performance Squad, beginning with a four-day match between Australia A and South Africa A at Allan Border field starting July 30.

Stoinis is hoping his form in the early part of the winter series will earn him selection for Australia's limited overs squads for the back-end of the Sri Lanka tour, one which starts with three Tests.

Ten months on from his brief taste of international cricket, Stoinis says his game has progressed. "I think I'm a better player than I was then.

"You want to go build a game that you can dominate anywhere and do your stuff and perform consistently. I guess you've just got to learn quickly and be put in environments and create an environment around yourself where you can do that."

But having thrived since crossing from Western Australia - playing in consecutive Sheffield Shield winning – Stoinis has more sustainable ambitions in mind.

"If you do well and you show some good qualities ... things move so quickly.

"That's all you can do.

"The more important goal is to build something that will take you there so that you never leave."