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Lyon still best spinner in the country

Roar Rookie
27th February, 2017
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Steve O'Keefe is Australia's premier spinner at the moment. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
Roar Rookie
27th February, 2017
31

The Australian cricket team, media and fans have been up in arms over the last couple of days after comments from the Indian camp regarding Steve O’Keefe’s man-of-the-match 12-wicket haul in Pune.

Virat Kohli blamed his own side’s batting, saying they “made O’Keefe look dangerous”, while Harbhajan Singh refused to praise the tweakers’ performance based on the state of the pitch.

As an Australian fan, I agree with them.

Obviously O’Keefe bowled well. But bowling well on a rank turning wicket like that predominately entails consistently landing the ball in the right areas and letting the pitch, and often the batsmen, do most of the work.

While an admirable skill in itself, that is certainly not worthy of being hailed as one the great Australian bowling performances. He played the conditions perfectly, but little more.

I loved seeing SOK clean up, but my concern is that it now puts him ahead of Nathan Lyon in the pecking order of spinners in this country. Given the fickle nature of the national selectors, and their track record of making major decisions based on a single performance, it seems likely that O’Keefe will be given the nod next time Australia only plays one spinner.

Nathan Lyon of Australia looks on

While he is super accurate, Indian coach Anil Kumble’s description of his bowling as ‘steady’ is also spot on. While Lyon may stray at times, he is by far the more dangerous spinner of the two, and actually relies on turn and bounce rather than simply landing the ball in a good area.

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That’s the reason he has had success in Australia and other parts of the world, and why he is our greatest ever off-spinner. At the moment, I can’t see O’Keefe making much of an impact at Test level outside of India.

I’ve found the slamming of Shane Warne in the aftermath of the match rather amusing. Warne labelled O’Keefe a ‘safe’ option, who bowled tight but wasn’t “a huge danger with turning deliveries.”

Many are saying that Warne now has egg on his face, but the wickets are beside the point. I would agree that even when O’Keefe was ripping through India’s batsmen, he never really looked dangerous. He had a great match, and well done to him, but I hope “Nice Garry” will be the customary call from behind the stumps for a long time yet.

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