Australia’s slow bowling stocks have been deemed dire enough for the game’s custodians to call for a “spin summit” at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence (COE) in Brisbane later this year.
Some of the nation’s best thinkers on the art, including Shane Warne’s mentor Terry Jenner, COE spin bowling coach John Davison, will meet in June to try to figure out why Australian tweakers are struggling to make a major impact at all levels of the game.
The expected flood of talent inspired by Shane Warne’s brilliant career hasn’t materialised with a revolving door for spin bowlers into the national side since his retirement.
Spin experts have suggested the problem lies partly with individuals lacking perseverance and also with captains not knowing how to use them.
An obsession with “dot ball cricket”, where the pressure imposed by drying up the runs results in wickets that have more to do with the batsmen’s impatience has cruelled many a slow bowler at every level.
Australia’s approach to this year’s Ashes series in England is likely to take a similar path, with Nathan Hauritz the likely touring spinner because he is the most predictable, allowing captain Ricky Ponting to set a suffocating field.
National selection panel chairman Andrew Hilditch, when asked whether Australia would use attacking spin in England or rely more on containment and pressure to create wickets, responded by saying the concept of attacking was “overrated”.
“The word attacking is a bit overrated really, to assert pressure from one end is attacking cricket,” argued Hilditch.
“Some spinners you regard as more attacking might spin the ball a bit more, they might be a bit more erratic, but really it’s about asserting pressure and performing the role the captain wants.
“Certainly Nathan did that very well in the times he’s played, because we wanted to tie up an end, assert pressure from that end, keep pressure on batsmen and relieve the fast bowlers.”
Encouragingly, Hauritz has shown a more aggressive bent in the Middle Eastern one day series against Pakistan, defeating opener Ahmed Shehzad lbw in the final game with a ball that turned in savage fashion.
Yet the omission of Krejza or Bryce McGain from the England touring party would reflect the way the game has moved in a direction that limits the opportunities open to slow bowlers interested in more than bowling maidens.
Hilditch kept the door open for the pair, though it is clear Hauritz has a rails run to the touring party.
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