We have lost the plot – we just didn’t know it. Cricket Australia continues to defend their proven-as-failed spin development program – promoting no two-way spinners and no wrist spinners.
They continue to support their appalling spin selection for the tour, and then compound it by continuing to select those spinners in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Lyon and Doherty are not fit for purpose – that is clearly substandard for Indian conditions – and probably substandard for any Test level conditions.
Playing these two is an insult to the standards imbued in the Baggy Green. It is not their fault they were selected – nor is it up to them to step down.
But their body language today as they were belted around the field by a pair of openers – one on debut – hardly left a sense of the required tenacity and dare I say mongrel. However it is 100 percent selection and those responsible for it.
It is certain there has been a catastrophic failure at both spin development and selection and re-selection.
This culpable management team has no where to go except to go.
They can’t make a decision to deselect the spinners without admitting they should resign immediately.
But this is bigger than the now-clear diversion of their, and our, respective needs.
This Border-Gavaskar Trophy is gone – but our traditions and ongoing pride require us to select our best available sportsmen, require them to stand up to the last man, and take our licks when others are better.
All those who went before, and those selected now, have an inailiable right to expect that those selected now meet those standards.
This India Tour has opened a can of worms that may have remained closed on other tours and home tests. But here we are.
India requires good spinners , India requires both-way spinners, India requires spinners that extract zip and topsin out of unhelpful pitches. We don’t have them – not in this team anyway.
It’s time to be radical and at least preserve our traditions, regardless of the expected Delhi strip. We must pick – this time – 11 players who meet the standards of tradition and a semblance of form.
In this team it means not picking either of these spinners. The consequence of having Pattinson, Starc, Johnson, and Siddle on the park says simply these are our best bowlers – so play them – we can’t solve the spinner issue here nor can we any longer sully the Baggy Green.
Call two of them ‘spinners’ for the match sheet if you must.
mick the clown
Guest
Over Lyon's past 10 test innings he has had an average of almost 70. 12 wickets for 812 runs. - When is enough, enough? Would we not be better with 4x quicks and no spinner?
Nick Richardson
Roar Guru
A Punter this troubles me to. I think O'keefe has a bit of Khawaja fever. A good player that doesn't get a go because the selectors prefer Doherty, a bowler who took more wickets in the second test than he did in the shield this year. Down right pathetic from CA.
Javaid
Guest
Australia must play with their seamers instead of present spiners. If the need of spiner then the captain using himself. Making strategy for the last test i.e the line of seamers out side the off stamp strictly, one or two short pitch deliveries in a over positively.
A Punter
Guest
Doherty is not even an average shield bowler. There are half a dozen spinners in the country with better first class credentials than him. I still can't understand how they even dared to leave behind the leading shield spinner this year (O'Keef).
jimmyk
Guest
I don't think Maxwell and smith can be considered all rounders if they are not expected to have an impact with their bowling. Why not just pick 'batsmen'?
Bearfax
Guest
Lyon is a solid average spin bowler. He does his job to the best of his ability. He's young and may learn and develop his skills, but at present he's really just a time out bowler for the quicks who are Australia's strength. Doherty is at best an average Shield bowler. Should never have been selected. Maxwell and Smith are batting all rounders and were never expected to have an impact with their bowling. We have become complacent with spin bowling in this country because we had for a while two of the finest exponents of the bowling style for generations in Warne and McGill, and just relied on them to meet our needs. Now we have maybe O'Keefe, and a couple of kids in Ahmed and Zampa at home as the only true options to what we've got here in India. Yet another blunder by CA
langou
Roar Guru
Its a real catch 22 situation when playing in India You are playing on spinners wickets against batsman who are experts in playing spin in these conditions. If you play extra quicks you are likely to lose because the wicket does nothing for them and if you play extra spin bowlers you are likely to lose because the batsmen play spin so well. I imagine Yossarian would struggle with this situation
Ian
Guest
Good article. It continues to baffle me as to why we continue to select sub-standard spin bowlers. It's a disgrace. It's time we realised we don't have any test quality spin bowlers at the moment, and stick with our best bowlers as the article suggests.
MrKistic
Roar Rookie
Lyon bowled better yesterday because he was throwing it up more often. So who's in his ear telling him to bowl the same 88km/h dart every ball? Is this what spin coaching consists of?
Robert
Guest
I recently did a coaching course with C.A and not one moment of the course related to spin bowling.When one of the coaches was asked what about spin bowling he replied" we dont do any classes for spin bowling except to tell any kids you teach to just spin the ball as hard as they can"No wonder there is a problem -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download it now [http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/the-roar/id327174726?mt=8].