Nero the hero during successful Inclusion Series

All three of Australia's National Disability Squads (blind, deaf and intellectual disability (ID)) played in eight-match home tours, with England touring for ID and deaf disciplines, and New Zealand travelling for the blind series.

Australia completed a clean sweep of the five-match T20I blind series, losing just five wickets across as many matches before claiming an emphatic 3-0 win in the ODI series.

England's deaf squad claimed six victories in their eight matches, while the touring ID side were just as strong, claiming both ODI and T20I series.

Though it was Australian blind batter Steffan Nero who stole the headlines with a world record performance.

Nero struck 309 off just 140 balls in the first ODI against the Kiwis, with 49 fours and a six in a spellbinding individual performance. He became the eighth Australian to score a triple century across international formats, and complimented his knocks of 113 (46) and 101* (47) in the T20I series.

Passing Masood Jan's record of 262* at the 1998 Blind Cricket World Cup, Nero's innings lifted Australia to a world record team total in any format of blind cricket (541/2). Speaking to Cricket Australia after his barnstorming performance, Nero was quick to thank his coach Jason Stubbs and his family's continued support, as he juggles training with Law and Behavioural Science degrees at university.

“A lot of evenings, a lot of weekends dedicated to it, along with university and work as well. It can be quite a lot at times," he said.

"It's a dream in itself, to play for Australia. Making a century for Australia is one of those lifelong memories that you'll never forget."

While run rates of more than ten are par for the course in blind cricket, sixes are a rarity, making his reverse sweep effort of half a dozen in his knock all the more special.

"I don't know (how he hit the six). I think there is sometimes an over where I think I'm going to try and take this guy downtown. Hit him out of the park. I think the ball just hit in the right spot," Nero noted.

"The reverse, that's one of my strengths. And you know, I've built that up over the years, just playing that reverse sweep all the time. It was definitely a shock when it went over the boundary for six."

Nero is also a member of both Australian goalball team and the Australian visually impaired futsal team. A natural sportsperson, Nero enjoys the physical and mental demands of the bat and ball game

“For any fully-sighted cricketer to bat for that amount of overs is tough. With vision impairment we have to expend a lot more energy to concentrate as well, especially if the ball is moving around and the glare. It's really hard," Nero said.

"That's one thing I think a lot of people don't realise is obviously just the mental aspect of just obviously just straining your eyes for that period of time can be quite taxing on someone."

The series across the three disciplines ended a wait of almost four years for international cricket, with the Covid pandemic and other complications stripping the calendar bare.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2018 between Cricket Australia and Blind Cricket Australia, Cricket Australia has agreed to fully fund one overseas tour every year, and ensure all national disability squads have access to training camps, high-performance coaches and online programs.

For Nero, more international place will prime him to play against the world's best.

"It's a dream in itself, to play for Australia. Making a century for Australia is one of those lifelong memories that you'll never forget," he said.

“My eventual goal is to try and score good runs against the best teams in the world, which is India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. You know, they're that top class, top tier.

"That's really my end goal is to try to do well against them as well.”