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Adelaide Oval specialists Stephen O’Keefe and Chadd Sayers should be the leading contenders to join the Australian side for the third Test against New Zealand with Mitchell Johnson retiring and reports that Josh Hazlewood will be rotated out of the team to protect his fitness.
Most of the talk about their potential replacements has focused on pacemen Peter Siddle and James Pattinson, and spinner Fawad Ahmed.
Yet left-arm tweaker O’Keefe and swing bowler Sayers both have incredible records at Adelaide Oval.
O’Keefe is a wizard at the ground, which is his most successful venue in first-class cricket having taken 31 wickets at an average of 19, including three five-wicket hauls.
Sayers has snared 47 wickets at the brilliant average of 23 in Sheffield Shield games at Adelaide, thanks to his ability to land the ball on a five-cent piece while swinging it both ways on the sleepy pitch.
Former Australian captain Mark Taylor suggested it should be Victorian Ahmed who should be considered for Adelaide, yet the leg spinner has struggled at the ground where he has taken just four wickets at an average of almost 50.
Over the past four Shield seasons, O’Keefe has been comfortably the most consistent bowler in the country, taking 100 wickets at an average of 22. That kind of form deserves to be rewarded, particularly when you factor in how potent he has been on the benign Adelaide drop-in pitch, which will offer very little assistance to the fast bowlers.
Siddle may have bowled well in his last Test but the vastly different conditions he will face in Adelaide cannot be overlooked. The slow, seaming deck on which Siddle thrived at The Oval was tailor-made for the Victorian. Having been reduced to a 130-135kmh seam bowler, he has repeatedly struggled for impact on Test surfaces over the past two years.
In his previous 12 Tests before The Oval, Siddle has taken just 26 wickets at an average of 45. He has not bowled waywardly, he has just had no penetration, with his strike rate blowing out to more than 90.
The last time he played at Adelaide, against India last year, he took 2-109 for the Test – with both of his wickets being tail-enders – and was promptly dropped from the Test side.
All of India’s top six played him with absolute ease, which resulted in him being used sparingly over the match – he bowled only slightly more than half the number of overs sent down by each of Johnson and Ryan Harris.
If Australia are to go down the pace route then Pattinson and Sayers should be the leading contenders. Pat Cummins, Jason Behrendorff and Nathan Coulter-Nile all have fitness issues, while Andrew Fekete has been dropped from the Tasmanian side.
The 25-year-old Pattinson is a better long-term option than 28-year-old Sayers, but the selectors should consider a horses-for-courses selection strategy.
That would vault Sayers to the top of the queue as the wily swing bowler has been phenomenally successful on the dead-flat Adelaide pitch, on which most visiting – and home – Shield pacemen have struggled.
The right-armer does not have the pace of Pattinson, operating mainly in the 125-130kmh bracket. But no other bowler in domestic ranks swings the bowl as expertly or builds pressure like Sayers – his economy rate of 2.6 runs per over in first-class cricket is the best of any current Australian paceman.
New Zealand’s batsmen enjoyed the amount of loose offerings they received from the Australian bowlers at the WACA. A miserly, cunning operator like Sayers would be a perfect partner for Mitchell Starc’s all-out attack style on a benign Adelaide pitch.
Pattinson is similar to Starc and Johnson in that he poses a heavy wicket-taking threat but often is expensive. He also has played very little first-class cricket over the past two-and-a-half years because of several serious injuries.
The young Victorian has been effective in his two Shield games this summer, grabbing eight wickets at 25. The question now is whether he is physically prepared for Test cricket after just two first-class games since his last long layoff.
Pattinson’s career has been so ravaged by injury that it would be wiser to take the safe route and give him a solid run in the Shield before thrusting him back into Tests.
With Siddle’s lack of penetration in Tests making him a poor option, and Cummins, Behrendorff and Coulter-Nile injured, Australia’s pace options for Adelaide are limited.
Combined with the fact Adelaide’s deck is unlikely to offer assistance to the fast men, surely two frontline quicks and all-rounder Mitch Marsh would be sufficient pace options.
Sayers is better suited to the Adelaide pitch than Siddle, while O’Keefe, with his extraordinary consistency and Adelaide Oval mastery, is a better choice than fielding a fourth pace option.
Australia have been rigid in their selection strategies in recent years, often refusing to pick bowlers based on pitch conditions. Now is the time to change tack.