The true worth of Cameron Green

"How were you when you made your debut?"

"I was 23 mate. You are just 23 now, aren't you? Wow, look where your career is already Mamba."

Cameron Green's response to his senior teammate was nothing more than a shy smile before he went back to facing throwdowns. This cute exchange between the two on Christmas morning was a nice little insight into the 23-year-old all-rounder. And how genuinely unfazed he seems to be following the enormous week he's just had in his cricket career, and life in general.

To start with, everything about Cameron Green is enormous. Whether you're talking about his literal size. Whether you're talking about his talent. Whether you're talking about his potential. Certainly, if you're talking about his first-ever IPL paycheque. And for that matter, the impact he had on Boxing Day at the MCG in front of 64,000 people to complete yet another rout of South Africa's batting.

There's still, however, an air of genuine innocence about him as a person and at times even about his cricket. Like he's yet to truly identify, if not realise, what his real worth is as a cricketer. And why everyone else around him seems to be convinced that he's the current big thing of Australian cricket. You can sense it in the way he's never had an actual retort to any of the friendly banter that's come his way since last Friday (December 23) when for all purposes his life changed completely, following the Mumbai Indians spending AUD 3.15 million to secure his services in the IPL.

Like when Usman Khawaja in particular kept trying to get everyone else to stop what they were doing and focus on Green taking strike two days out from the Test. "Do you all realise what a big moment this is? The three-million dollar kid is about to take strike for the first time," the opener was overheard saying in jest. There were even suggestions that the flashlights be turned on for the man in the spotlight to get highlighted further. Once more, all Green had to offer was a smile, before settling into his nets session. There was also the time he politely ignored suggestions from another teammate about sponsoring bats for the rest of the team.

All the expected and inevitable banter aside, there's not a single member of the Australian camp who doesn't truly appreciate the real value that Green has brought to the Test team and to Australian cricket in general since his arrival two summers ago. The IPL deal was only a global approval of it. And Monday (December 26) at the MCG was the perfect illustration of his true worth, if not a reminder of how 'priceless' his addition to the setup has been.

It wasn't like South Africa had taken control of proceedings when Green came back for his third spell of the innings. It's safe to say they'd not even drawn parity by then in terms of how the day's proceedings had progressed. But after a typically untoward start, the visitors had clawed their way back through Kyle Verreynne and Marco Jansen, who'd put on 107 together by the time Green commenced his seventh over.

He'd been brought back in at a crucial juncture though. Mitchell Starc had just left the field holding his left hand in pain. The veteran left-armer had injured it while trying to acrobatically snare a catch at long-on off Nathan Lyon's bowling. So Green was coming on in a scenario his role, if anything, is designed for. To step in for one of the premier bowlers and take the load off them. In this case, Australia were literally a bowler short with there being uncertainty over Starc's injury.

Green had taken a wicket in his maiden spell of the day but he'd still looked a little out of rhythm. But now was the time for the big man to put his hand up. And from the very first ball of this spell, there was purpose to how the Western Australian was looking to set the well-set South Africans up.

He would keep pushing the two right-handers back by banging in a few deliveries slightly short of length and then slip in the slightly fuller ball on the fifth stump line. It almost worked with the penultimate ball of his second over as he had Jansen flashing at one of those sucker deliveries. And by the time he had Verreynne edging to Steve Smith at slip in his next over, Green had conceded a single run off the 16 balls leading up to it. He'd also shut the tap on Verreynne and Jansen at a time the duo had found a lovely tempo in terms of run-scoring and rotating the strike.

The delivery to get Verreynne was also another glimpse into Green's cricketing nous and his ability to create wicket-taking opportunities when there appear to be none coming. Having realised that the ball was doing nothing in the air or off the rather batting-friendly MCG surface, the right-arm seamer had shifted to bowling more cross-seam deliveries to try and coax the ball to find some movement. And so he did with that delivery to the South African wicket-keeper, landing it just outside off-stump before shaping it away just enough to catch the outside-edge. It was an expert piece of bowling that summed up why he was looked at as a genuine fast bowler in his early days of first-class cricket.

It was a similar delivery in his next over that accounted for Jansen, but was slightly fuller, and was also a result of how he'd worked his fellow giant over earlier in the spell. Just like that, in a week that Mumbai Indians had broken the bank for him, Cameron Green had broken the back of the South African fightback. It was only fair that he then cleaned up the rest to finish with his first-ever Test five-wicket haul. It wasn't the first time he'd stood up and broken the game for his team at this level. He did it on a couple of occasions during the Ashes last summer and crucially so on the final day in Lahore.

And if you are one of those who's concerned about what impact the IPL deal could have on Cameron Green the international cricketer, the beaming smile on his face as he led the Australians off in front of a roaring MCG crowd on Boxing Day should have put you at ease. For, there seems to be no doubt over where his priorities lie. You can see it in the diligence with which he trains for every Test, whether it's with the hours spent batting in the nets or how he's spent hours working on getting the alignment with his bowling action in perfect order with Andre Adams.

More so in the way he politely dismissed any suggestions of the life-changing IPL auction having changed his mind-set in any way.

"I didn't do much to earn that. I just put my name into the auction. It doesn't change who I am or how I think, or the confidence I have in my cricket," is how he summed it up. You couldn't help but be convinced on a day Cameron Green proved once again that he is indeed priceless.