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Australian cricket's four-year spin cycle

28th July, 2011
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28th July, 2011
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Australian Michael Beer back in Australian Cricket team

Australian Michael Beer fields on the boundary during play on day 2 in the Fifth Ashes Test. AAP Image/Paul Miller

Whilst there were some encouraging signs to emerge from the naming of the Test squad to head over to Sri Lanka, the overwhelming sense is that the squad has raised more questions than answers.

And the findings from the much spoken of Argus review cannot be released soon enough.

This is perhaps best illustrated in the selection of spinners for the tour, an area that has been a migraine, let alone a headache, for the selectors since the retirements of Warne, MacGill and Hogg in the space of 12 months.

The latest installment in this saga has seen the retention of the incumbent from the Sydney Test, Michael Beer, as well as the young up-and-coming Nathan Lyon from South Australia.

Beer’s selection is one that still raises many an eyebrow amongst the cricketing public.

Most had not heard of him before Shane Warne came out and backed him to take Xavier Doherty’s spot in the Ashes, and many still consider him to be chosen on the strength of that one article by Warne.

Admittedly the great man himself had a similar record to Beer when he made his debut. However, it is hard to see Beer pulling out the same rabbits that Warne did.

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Where Warney was different is that it was identified early he would be a special talent – no offence to Beer, but he is a decent bowler, not a potential world beater.

Lyon was selected on the basis of a strong domestic T20 campaign and a man of the series performance in the A-team tour of Zimbabwe. Whilst I am all for young players being blooded, this seems to be a misguided attempt to replicate selection trends from years gone by.

When I was growing up watching cricket in the ’80s and early ’90s, the common path was for someone to cut their teeth playing ODI’s for the national side, and then once deemed ready they would be selected in the Tests.

No doubting that Lyon has talent, but playing in domestic hit and giggle and then taking on a side still not quite up to international level is a different prospect to taking on masterful players of spin on their own soil.

The men you do feel sorry for are Nathan Hauritz and Jason Krejza. Hauritz, it seems, has only missed out due to his recovery from shoulder surgery; however one has to think the treatment over the last 12 months has been a little shabby.

His swift dumping after the Indian tour that preceded the Ashes seemed a knee jerk reaction – even the great Warney struggled in India. To have Doherty, Smith and Beer all picked ahead of him last summer was a slap in the face for the man who had done so much in the 12-18 months leading up to the Indian tour to prove his many detractors wrong.

Then this brings us to the many known as ‘Krazy’. There is no hiding from the fact that he can leak runs quite freely, but unlike the other contenders he is an attacking bowler. The worry is that people cannot see past the runs – when his amazing debut performance is looked back on, people focus on the runs conceded, not the 12 wickets.

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But the fact remains, since the retirement of McGrath and Warne, there have only been two instances of Australian bowlers taking 10 or more in a match – Krejza’s debut, and Mitch Johnson’s one man show in Perth against South Africa.

Of the recognised bowlers who have played in that same time, his strike-rate is the fourth best. Could have come in handy in Brisbane when England scored 1/517.

One can only hope that an industrial sized broom is swept through the offices in Cricket Australia after the Argus review, particularly in the selectors offices, and that we can finally get ourselves out of this four-year spin cycle.

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