- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Australia's Nathan Hauritz appeals unsuccessfully for the wicket of England's Paul Collingwood during the final day of the first cricket test match between England and Australia in Cardiff, Wales, Sunday, July 12, 2009. AP Photo/Tom Hevezi
At the beginning of October, Cricket Australia announced that the old state second XI competition would be replaced by a new Under-23 competition focussing on the development of spin bowlers. What was formerly known as the CA Cup would henceforth be known as the Futures League.
The Futures League will promote aggressive cricket by default, with measures in place to encourage attacking declarations in the three-day matches. Teams will only be able to bat for 96 overs (with no new ball available) in the first innings, and only 144 overs in total. Further, an outright win will earn more points than in previous years.
Each team will be allowed to field three “over age” players, which makes the decision to label each side as an Under-23 team (instead of the former 2nd XI tags) a bit curious.
The announcement itself was met with both enthusiasm and scepticism in some quarters, including on The Roar.
While most agreed that development of spin bowlers in Australia had got to the point of being a no-brainer, the concern was that the awarding of bonus points for wickets taken by young spinners might create some kind of false economy, given that Sheffield Shield and Test captains are not operating under the same system.
A financially-minded team-mate and I were discussing this very topic at cricket training the other day. Can the Futures League actually develop young spinners and maintain a genuine second tier of state cricket in Australia?
Well, with the benefit of an extra week to ponder this, and in which the first round of Futures League matches happened to be played, I can happily report that the answer is ‘yes’.
The three fixtures completed around the country last week all had a common element: young spinners getting extended spells, plenty of wickets among them, and some positive signs for the future.
The standout performances from the tweakers came from South Australian leg-spinner Cullen Bailey, and Tasmanian off-spinner Wade Irvine.
Bailey is a name known to plenty of domestic cricket followers. He and one-Test off-spinner Dan Cullen burst onto the scene in their late teens, and at the time, both were predicted to have long futures in Australian cricket ahead of them, at both state and international level.
Unfortunately, both struggled after early success, and it got to the point where South Australia went into Sheffield Shield games last season without a recognised spinner.
Both managed to hold onto state contracts for this season, but it may have been a close-run thing with off-spinning all-rounder Aaron O’Brien arriving in Adelaide from New South Wales.
Bailey, to his great credit, has started off the 2009/2010 season in the best possible way, taking eleven wickets in a high-scoring match against the Victorian Under-23s in Adelaide.
Despite SA losing by two wickets in the end, Bailey took 4 wickets in Victoria’s first innings and followed up with 7 of the 8 wickets to fall in the second dig.
With Victoria scoring at better than a run-a-ball in their second innings, it’s worth noting that 6 of Bailey’s 7 wickets were either caught-and-bowled, stumped, bowled or lbw. However aggressive the batting, any Australian leggie taking 11 wickets in a match is going to get noticed.
Rookie all-rounder Irvine, who doubles as an opening batsman for Tasmania’s Under-23s, made up for a mixed time with the bat by finishing with 7 wickets for the match against Western Australia in Perth.
Two first innings wickets were followed by 5/103 in the second innings for the young off-spinner, and helped knock WA over for 264, which in turn allowed Tasmania to chase 186 for their six wicket win.
As with Bailey, 4 of Irvine’s 7 wickets were on the pitch itself, either bowled, caught-and-bowled, or caught behind.
Both Bailey and Irvine have now been included in their respective state’s 13-man Sheffield Shield squads, with SA hosting Tasmania from Tuesday. If included in the final XIs, it would mark a continued re-emergence for Bailey, while for Irvine it will be a welcome First Class Debut. No doubt both will be sweating on the Adelaide Oval pitch necessitating a second spinner.
There were plenty of other young spinners throwing their name up too. Luke Mangan took 4 wickets with his leg-breaks for WA against Tasmania, while in Brisbane Cameron Boyce’s leggies netted him three wickets against the ACT.
I was interested to read while looking through scorecards and profiles that former Australian spinner Ashley Mallet described 20 year-old Boyce as “the best spinner in Australia not in first-class cricket” back in 2007/08, so it will be interesting to track his progress in this competition.
Queensland hasn’t really had a regular First Class spinner since Nathan Hauritz emerged years ago, so the opportunity is certainly there.
One other concern about the Futures League’s emphasis on spin bowling for me was how these young spinners would be captained.
Fortunately this concern might have been a touch premature too, as most of the spinners used were given lengthy spells, with some coming into the attack quite early.
The other plus than I can see is that three sides went into their games with a captain also under 23, with WA’s captain is still only 24.
In my mind, this means we’re not only developing young spinners, we’re also developing the next generation of state captains. Traditionally, the second XIs were captained by more experienced fringe First Class players, and so once past the under-age rep teams there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for young captains to keep leading teams.
This move to the Futures League and the encouragement of spin bowlers is a good one in my humble opinion, and I can see no reason why the new competition won’t achieve its main goals.
Cricket supporters are often quick to scold CA, but in this case we should be giving them credit for a move that actively promotes the future of Australian spin-bowling.