When I read Ronan O’Connell’s article on Nathan Hauritz, I was reminded of a comment from a former state-contracted player made to me at a club match in October.

This player, who faced Hauritz in Second XI cricket, said that he felt as though Hauritz was “capable of getting me out every ball.”

“Capable of getting me out every ball.”

The admission isn’t surprising because a batsman of less than Test match quality should have struggled against Hauritz. However, Nathan Hauritz isn’t the first bowler who popped into my head when thinking about bowlers capable of getting a batsman out every ball.

Shane Warne was, and Stuart MacGill wasn’t too far behind. Hauritz bowled with the same hand as Warne and MacGill. In terms of what is directly applicable between Hauritz and the other two bowlers, that’s pretty much it. Hauritz didn’t have the mystery of either bowler. His accuracy lay somewhere between Warne and MacGill.

Leg-spinners are prized in Australia. Off-spinners have their place, they’re more common and they certainly fit better into the “keep it tight” plans of amateur and professional teams. Off spin is the safe option for part-timers, and the swallowable option for broken-down fast bowlers who twist their body, bowl accurately and only marginally spin the ball.

But that comes at a price. Off-spinners are the distant cousins. They aren’t afforded the same respect by right-hand batsmen, because the stock ball is spinning back into the batsmen.

After Warne and MacGill, there was always going to be a let-down no matter who was picked. But it was exacerbated for Hauritz’s critics when Hauritz was picked. For them, Hauritz represented that safe but unthreatening club option.

Jason Krejza’s inability to break through at Perth in 2008 as South Africa pulled off a record run chase and Bryce McGain’s injury meant Hauritz was the specialist spinner for the remaining two Tests of the summer, the first time he would play two consecutive Tests.

With Australia one-nil down in the series, Hauritz’s job was to be an Australian Paul Harris, to provide Ricky Ponting control. Now, Harris wasn’t a bad bowler. He was a good fourth bowler in a strong pace attack.

While a good fourth man will have their share of bad days, will be occasionally be outbowled by a part-timer and may be the fifth option used on a seamer-friendly day, they will have their good days and be consistent.

Nevertheless, it was something of a comedown for the Australian selectors. For the first time since South Africa’s readmission, it had been forced into effectively saying, ‘we wish our spin attack was as good as South Africa’s. Our spinner’s primary function is to contain the opposition.’

There was always going to be some poor guy in the role of the Australian spinner that this statement applied to – it was just Hauritz’s considerable misfortune that the poor guy was him. Because most Australian cricket fans weren’t going to compare he and Paul Harris and suddenly think, Hey, considering South Africa’s inability to find a world-class spinner, their record in India is excellent.

It was much more likely they’d think, ‘geez, remember what it was like when Warney was around? Geez, he was good.’

Because of the list of South Africa’s spinners since readmission, Harris was allowed time to settle into the side.

As for Hauritz, when a steady player follows a great player – even if he’s objectively the best replacement – there’ll always be an itch.

With Hauritz, there was an itch to try someone else. Someone younger. Someone in great form. Someone who can bat a bit better. Someone who can spin the ball away from right-handed batsmen. Someone who can help remove the need for a specialist spinner.

Someone.

That way you can abandon the mad notion that patience is a necessary virtue, in order to make best of the resources you actually have, and not the resources you wish that you had.

Even during Hauritz’s finest time as international cricketer, there was always an itch for Australian selectors and fans.

It never went away in his Test career.

Not when he played in his first Test win. Not when he nearly bowled Australia to victory at Cardiff. Not when Australia missed him at the Oval. Not when he took successive five-wicket hauls against Pakistan. Not when he bowled into a gale at Windy Wellington, and picked up the wickets of three well-set batsmen in New Zealand’s second innings to help prevent a nervy fourth innings run chase.

Never.

During the 2008 Boxing Day Test, the decision to bring back a spinner because of a South African-style containment plan worked on day two.

Fired up in front of his home ground, Peter Siddle had led the Australian attack in an effort that had reduced the South Africans to 7-198 off 63 overs, trailing by 196 runs. Hauritz’s figures at this point were 2-49 off 20 overs, the two wickets being Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher.

But as day three got underway, the Australians soon became painfully aware that the South Africans weren’t done fighting in their first innings, and they were undermanned. With Brett Lee injured, and injury complaints leaving Ponting unwilling to bowl Andrew Symonds and Simon Katich, a heavy reliance was left on the other bowlers.

JP Duminy provided immovable and Dale Steyn, who admittedly benefited from poor fielding, gave Duminy fantastic support to earn South Africa a 65-run lead. Psychologically, it was more like a 265-run lead. Australia never recovered, lost a Test that they couldn’t afford to lose, and at the end of the second day were never going to lose.

That was the fault of the Australian team as a whole and not any one individual. But that match, along with Hauritz’s lack of a big haul in the next Test at Sydney, meant that the specialist spinner was now not an automatic part of the furniture. Conditions had to dictate it.

It meant that Hauritz was on the sidelines for the whole of the return series in South Africa. Bryce McGain, available having managed to get his shoulder right enough, received his chance at Cape Town after an all-pace attack and a bevy of part-time spinners had won the series.

How Bryce McGain made it to Test level is a lovely story. The Jarrod Kimber story on Cricinfo about McGain is a good read. McGain’s persistence before, during and after his one Test is an example to all cricketers. Unfortunately, the story of McGain at Test level can be summarised with the words, “he got eaten.”

It meant that when the Australians went to England in 2009, Hauritz was unfamiliarly lonely. For the first time, there was no other competitor with Hauritz for the title of preferred specialist spinner in Australia – he wasn’t warming the seat for anyone. There was no Warne, no MacGill, no Brad Hogg, no Beau Casson, no Cameron White, no Krejza and no McGain.

Just Hauritz.

Even so, it wasn’t clear whether Hauritz would play in Cardiff. He didn’t have good figures in the warm-up matches, and Stuart Clark was on the sidelines. Perhaps surprisingly, that’s where Clark stayed until the fourth Test.

At Cardiff, Hauritz embarrassed Kevin Pietersen and outbowled Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar. Hauritz claimed as many wickets as the English attack did as a whole. Hauritz was doing more than a respectable containment job of a fourth bowler. He was doing the job, being the main man. At lunch and tea on day five, Hauritz was haunting England at Cardiff.

But when England made it to stumps nine down, Cardiff was to haunt Hauritz’s Test career. It was to be the closest Hauritz came to making his name a victorious Ashes name. Australian cricketers can dominate other teams, but the Ashes are where an Australian or English Test cricketer’s name is fully made

After three Tests, it wasn’t unreasonable to claim that Hauritz was out-bowling Graeme Swann, even when he sustained an injury at Lord’s. But Headingley’s seamer-friendly conditions made Stuart Clark’s return almost mandatory, forcing Hauritz to the sidelines as Australia convincingly levelled the series at that most Australian of English grounds.

Yet that left the Australian selectors with one major headache – how to fit five bowlers into four. Every bowler had made a significant contribution at Headingley, but The Oval was never going to be as seamer-friendly, making Hauritz’s return probable.

Due to a mix up in communication and a misread of The Oval pitch, the selectors left Hauritz on what proved to be so much of a Bunsen Burner it might as well have been running, slow-motion, towards spinners in a white dress. It’s hard to know when Hauritz’s absence jarred the most – when Marcus North was bowling, or when Australia’s quicks were bowling, or when Graeme Swann was sending through the top on day two. It made Hauritz a lock for the Australian summer.

It wasn’t so much a case for Hauritz, but the concept of having a spinner. With Hauritz known to be the best spinner, the itch that said to play someone else didn’t matter. People who didn’t like Hauritz had to put up, or more correctly, since they couldn’t put up, they had to shut up.

Australia won the post-Ashes series against the West Indies 2-0. Hauritz’s series closely mirrored that of his team. After Brisbane, it was a workmanlike effort. Hauritz struggled in Adelaide, not taking a wicket in a West Indian second innings dominated by an unusually responsible Chris Gayle.

Afterwards, Gayle compared Hauritz’s bowling to his own part-time offerings. To rub salt into the wound, Gayle then gave full rein to his instincts at Perth with a 70-ball century, which included four sixes in six Hauritz overs, including one that crashed into the roof of the Lillee-Marsh Stand.

In short, Hauritz was an OK member of an okay side that had done what it had needed to do against a pesky opponent that wasn’t good enough to take twenty wickets. Hauritz was a maximum-three-wickets-an-innings man. Nothing more, nothing less.

The selectors and Ponting wanted more. They wanted Hauritz to be the main man on days four and five of Test matches. In the next series against a mediocre Pakistan, Hauritz was that man. He did bowl more attacking and threatening lines.

Faisal Iqbal was bowled trying to cut a big-turning off-break. He even made 75. Pakistan didn’t have an attacking answer to his loop and bounce that lasted for anywhere near a long enough time, and they didn’t bother finding a defensive answer. While he went at over four-runs-an-over, was taking wickets and looking threatening.

Sydney was even better for Hauritz. If the match had been held a year earlier, Hauritz would have been secured in a box somewhere while another fast bowler took his place and Ponting overcoming his dislike bowling first to insert a fragile Pakistan on a fast bowler’s paradise. But a year later, Ponting backed his attack in the fourth innings over Pakistan’s in the first innings.

Australia were behind the eight ball from the time they lost their first wicket and Pakistan still only needed 99 with seven wickets left at tea on day four.

Hauritz had bowled two overs for thirteen runs. In his second over, Mohammed Yousuf had hit him for three fours. Would Hauritz continue after the break? Or would Ponting turn to his quicks, and look for Peter Siddle, Doug Bollinger or Shane Watson to partner Mitchell Johnson?

In what was arguably Ponting’s biggest ever show of faith in Hauritz, the off-spinner resumed after the break. Yousuf smashed one. It was a perfect combination of strength and timing, but not placement.

The ball hit Nathan Lyon on the full, and he clung on. Later in the same over, Hauritz also dismissed Misbah-ul-Haq. It was Misbah pre-captaincy, but he was still the other cool head Pakistan had left. Now it was down to the Akmal brothers and the tail.

Johnson and Bollinger accounted for those two, and the story of the Pakistan Tail vs Nathan Hauritz was very one-sided. The dismissals read poke, attempted slog, attempted slog. They looked like club batsmen, way out of their depth, against a bowler who had long had the accusation of club standard thrown at him.

No matter what one thinks of the clouds hanging over that Sydney Test, it was a damn good performance.

He still had his sceptics. But if the itch that yearned for someone else hadn’t been removed, it had been temporarily stilled as much as it was ever going to be. He had hit the heights for a spinner by leading the bowling attack in the fourth innings.

Hauritz played in their next series in New Zealand and missed the next series, against Pakistan in England. Those series left Hauritz’s reputation as Australia’s best spinner intact, neither bolstered or diminished. While Hauritz’s absence was missed at Headingley as Pakistan levelled the series on a seamer-friendly pitch in a low-scoring innings, he had only played a contributing role in New Zealand, even allowing for his full of character 3-119 off 49 overs bowling into a gale at Wellington.

However, Hauritz would face a far sterner test in India – the place that destroys Australian spinners – and the upshot of the Indian tour would cause the itch to pick someone else to not only return, stronger than ever, but be acted upon.

One can talk about the misguided requests from Ricky Ponting that Hauritz bowl more like Harbhajan Singh, whether it was misinterpreted from more reasonable suggestions of using the crease and bowling a wider line, or even some of the fields set, but really, Hauritz just wasn’t good enough. There’s no shame in that, considering that India’s batsmen were lions at home, and Hauritz, no matter how hard he fought, was always pushing an uphill battle to avoid being a lamb. Such is the lot of Australian Test spinners in India.

What made Hauritz look so bad was the appearance, even if it wasn’t the reality, of regression. He had seemingly gone back to negativity. His limits had been shown up, as he wasn’t even applying the pressure on the Indian batsmen through his economy rate

No one could claim to be overly surprised, but it strengthened the hand of Hauritz’s critics.

Xavier Doherty was in fantastic form at the start of the 2010-11 season. Belatedly brought into the ODI side, he impressed against Sri Lanka. He bowled well for Tasmania at first-class level, as the unusually wet conditions suited Tasmania’s attack – full of seam and swing bowlers with a spinner that could keep it tight. And while Doherty was getting opportunities to impress, the damp 2010-11 season counted against Hauritz, and there was nothing Hauritz or NSW captain Simon Katich could do about it.

Nathan Hauritz was condemned to be in the group to be given one Test too few even when others were being given one Test too many, and he didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to get ignored when Doherty was replaced by Michael Beer, when Hauritz was taking five wicket hauls and centuries. His selection surprised even Merv Hughes, who was on the selection panel a mere two months before the start of the Ashes. Beer wasn’t bad when given his debut. He did enough to be selected on tours to Sri Lanka and the West Indies. It was just that nothing he did made Hauritz’s absence explicable.

After the Ashes debacle, Beer and Nathan Lyon were picked as the spinners for the Sri Lankan series.

After Lyon took his chance in his first Test, he received more support and crucially, compared to Hauritz along with Warne and MacGill. It didn’t remove the yearning for Warne or someone else until Lyon was part of an Ashes-winning side. But it arguably bought Lyon time to build up confidence to make sure he’d be back after being dropped twice, and Australia eventually learnt to nurture a mere mortal properly again.

Only five Tests after Australia won against England 5-0, Lyon might’ve been dropped after a poor series in the UAE. Instead, he bowled Australia to victory in their next Test at Adelaide.

It isn’t that giving a player one more Test will always work, or that it’s always the best course of action. But it removes the question of what may have happened.

When announcing his retirement, Hauritz said that he didn’t think that he was good enough anymore that he didn’t get enough of the match practise necessary to be effective in the BBL anymore, that he didn’t want to have to deal with the highs and lows.

Skilled anti-mystery bowlers such as Hauritz only ever make it past grade level through sheer hard work. Otherwise, their bowling won’t ever make it past Chris Gayle’s level.

Persistence was the most endearing quality of the most-capped Australian spinner in years between Warne and Lyon. He wasn’t the greatest bowler to play for Australia, but he was a Test bowler, even if he was destined to play many Tests.