Rank turners and green seamers – Australia’s batting failures on such bowler-friendly surfaces have become all-too-familiar in recent years.
Yet the pitches on which their batsmen have floundered in their past four Tests in Asia – two in Pakistan and now two in Sri Lanka – have been by no means spinners’ paradises.
The Galle deck on which Australia have capitulated in the ongoing second Test against Sri Lanka has not offered much help to any of the bowlers.
It is a million miles away from being the kind of raging turner which the Australians so fear. The same was true of the deck at Kandy for the first Test where only left arm wrist spinner Lakshan Sandakan earned consistently sharp turn.
And in the UAE just under two years ago the pitches were lifeless and brimming with runs. Those surfaces at Abu Dhabi and Dubai gave nothing to the pacemen and apart from the occasional delivery by Pakistan leg spinner Yasir Shah, there was minimal turn.
In spite of such relatively batting-friendly conditions, Australia repeatedly have capitulated with yesterday’s display of ineptitude perhaps the most galling. In total, 21 wickets fell yesterday, including 11 Australians.
Only six times in the past 60 years of Test cricket have more wickets fallen in a single day.
Such a stat would prompt the casual observer to assume the pitch was all but unplayable.
The reality is that local pundits and commentators stated the Galle pitch was in fact turning less than it had in recent Tests there.
The Australian pacers were fantastic in helping dismiss Sri Lanka twice for totals which were well below par. In the first innings they rolled the hosts for 281, when the average score batting first in Galle had been 375 over the past five Tests at the ground. Second time around they scythed through Sri Lanka’s top six, reducing them to 6-121.
But their lack of rest between innings meant the Australian quicks always were going to tire as the day wore on.
Sri Lanka’s tail duly wagged against the struggling Australian spin duo of Nathan Lyon and Jon Holland.
Lyon again fell into the trap of bowling too swift and flat in Asia. While Sri Lankan finger spinners Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera were quite slow through the air, averaging 81kmh and 82kmh respectively, Lyon fired his deliveries in at an average of 86kmh.
Not only did he bowl too fast but Lyon’s length often was too short, allowing the Sri Lankan batsmen to play him comfortably off the back foot. The contrast again was clear against Herath and Perera whose fuller lengths constantly had the Australian batsmen reaching for the ball.
Holland, meanwhile, was attacked by the Sri Lankan batsmen whenever he was handed the ball. Unable to deal with this pressure he lost the accuracy for which he has become known at State level.
It is not the fault of the bowlers, though, that Australia find themselves staring at a second consecutive crushing loss.
Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon have combined for the sensational figures of 33 wickets at an average of 20 in this series. Nothing more can be asked of a visiting bowling unit on what have been two fairly flat pitches.That trio must be hopeful their batting colleagues stop wasting their fine work.
As expected, it is spin which has been the biggest challenge for the Australian batsmen this series.
Between them, Herath, Perera and Sandakan have snared 29 wickets at 13 across these two Tests. Few of their wickets have been the result of sharp turn or startling bounce. Often it has been straight deliveries which have brought the Australians undone, just like in the UAE in 2014.
Although the pitches have not been playing any tricks, most of Australia’s batsmen have looked panicked against spin. They have tended to occupy the extreme ends of the batting spectrum – either playing ultra-defensively, or batting in a cavalier fashion.
None of the Australians have been able to find the happy middle ground between these two approaches, aside from Steve Smith in the second innings at Kandy.
Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan batsmen have used their feet and the sweep shot to continually knock Australia’s spinners off their lengths. Even tail enders like Herath have swept effectively, something none of the Australians have managed.
The Sri Lankans use their feet and the sweep not only as a means of hitting boundaries, but for getting off strike.
The inability to rotate the strike and ease pressure has been a huge issue for the Australians. Spinners love nothing more than joining the dots against an unassertive batsmen, safe in the knowledge that eventually the building pressure will get to them.
Herath has done this expertly. Rarely in these two Tests has the crafty left armer produced unplayable deliveries which have turned or bounced alarmingly. Instead he has craftily managed his patience, waiting for the Australian batsmen to implode.
His success, and the related failures of the Australian batsmen, have had absolutely nothing to do with the pitches.
Whiteline
Guest
The key to playing spin bowling is to hit the ball at the lowest bounce point (ie the pitch of the ball or half volley) or its highest bounce ( using the crease and playing late off the back foot. If you assess both teams carefully, this is the essential difference in technique and the subsequent result!
Tanmoy Kar
Guest
Earlier in MCG & SCG ball used to turn from third day on wards & spinners used to come on play. But now-a-days pitches all over Australia prepared as batsman's paradise, hence Australian batsmen are not learning to play in difficult conditions.
Cadfael
Roar Guru
Cadfael
Roar Guru
In the first innings, Marsh was out there with a number 11, he was just trying to get runs on the board. You really should be directing the comments to Burns and Khawajah in particular. Sadly, our brains trust only sent one spare batsmen which would mean only one would be dropped.
Broken-hearted Toy
Guest
There are technical issues though. Hardly any s/c spin bowlers do well in Australia as what is needed in Aus and what is needed in the SC are different styles of bowling.
Ray
Guest
Australian coach Darren Lehmann has stated the team were not up to international standard. In terms of this woeful batting performance, where does the buck start and stop. It is evident to blind freddy that Australian batsman simply cannot cope with quality spin. This paltry effort can be best described as no better than ‘’backyard cricket’’ On a sobering note my congratulations to Mitchell Starc on a fine effort considering spin friendly wickets were expected to dominate.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Having spinning pitches will help our spinners as well. They need to be exposed to bowling in those conditions in real matches just like the batsmen as will gain just as much. Learning how much turn they can get, have some confidence figure out just how much they can toss the ball up etc...
Dangertroy
Guest
It's not just the pitches though, it's the spinners. You can look at our best 2 spinners currently at work in Galle and they just aren't as threatening as their Sri Lanka counterparts. As mentioned in the article and elsewhere, it's not prodigious turn off the pitch that is doing our batsmen in, it's the variations and the straight balls. We need to have our batsmen playing against canny spinners who are outfoxing the batsmen. Pitches to play a part for sure, they don't deteriorate enough to turn an average spinner into a serious threat. But we aren't being beaten on a raging turner day 5 in Galle, we lost 11 wickets on day 2.
Simoc
Guest
They need a lot less coaches. All these exs filling the batsmans brains with waffle to justify their wages. They aren't needed. Let the guys think for themselves and be judged on it.
Rellum
Roar Guru
Players need to have more responsibility for their own development from much earlier in their career. Before professionalism took hold the really great players where the ones who understood their own game and how to fix it, or a t least be open to certain ideas on how to fix it. They had to be to fight their way through the grades.
Bellamorey
Guest
In a month or so this series will be consigned to the dustbin of life. The boys will come home to some friendly wickets. Warner and Smith will smash everything. Voges will be back to Bradman and Brayshaw et al will be salivating and celebrating their magnificence. The inevitable crap ads will be made, major endorsements will be signed and not one lesson will be learned. Why bother caring when you can get away with mediocrity?
Peter
Roar Rookie
Blaming officials and coaches is fair enough. But these are professional cricketers, the best in the country supposedly, and they need to take most of the responsibility for the failures in Sri Lanka.
Rellum
Roar Guru
I will just cut and paste from yesterdays article "Surely it is time to remove Pat Howard. The guy has overseen a long and steady decline into hopelessness. Getting rid of him wont fix anything now but bring in someone actually qualified for the job who knows the game world be a start to stop this slide. Of course CA and its scheduling and the whole junior set up needs to be looked at."
Rellum
Roar Guru
I have argued this a few times in the last few days on this site. It is not enough to just have practice pitches in Brisbane, we need spin friendly wickets as part of the shield. That means the SCG and even the Adelaide oval need to be altered to be turning pitches. Players need to learn to play on those wickets in real games with real consequences.
Dangertroy
Guest
After some consideration, I think the issue is that australia batsmen aren't facing enough good spinners in the shield. It's not just the pitches, it's having quality spinners bowling on the pitches we have. We bring in plenty of overseas players for the big bash, why not extend it to the shield. There are certainly issues with overseas spinners displacing Australian players, but without it we are hampering batmens growth. One solution would be to add another team to the shield to increase the number or players. Then there are scheduling issues with overseas tours and what not, but im sure you contract players for a part of the season.
E-Meter
Guest
When you mention the Establishment, I assume you mean the always missing in action, high performance unit?
craig swanson
Guest
Do not sugar coat the failures of our spinners. They are not up to the level needed on these decks. Take the Lankan bowlers they are bowling like a pack of hungry wolves because they have confidence in their ability and know every mound of dirt on these decks.. Our two look wet behind the ears compared to Herath and Perera.
Ruminate
Roar Guru
Great article Ronan, only one point that I'm not sure that I agree on, and that is that the paceman would have been tired. For the match, Starc bowled 16 & 12, Hazlewood 15 & 9, Marsh, 9 & 4. Hazlewood and Marsh were if anything under bowled in the second innings, with Hazlewoods overs in particular being bowled too little, too late. Lyon was very disappointing, pace length and accuracy were all well off the mark. Holland ordinary but was placed under too much pressure in his first test to play too big a role given his preparation.15 &10 overs, and being brought on when batsmen were already set. The shot selection of the batsmen was appalling. In the first innings Smith going back and attempting to cut a straight ball that he should have come forward and defended was poor technique, and the rest followed. Too many fell to straight balls as you pointed out. The lack of sweeping is bewildering, and I would for a someone to ask Lehmann about that. Unusually poor slips fielding didn't help either and probably cost them up to 100 runs, a big amount in this game. It's really hard to fathom the Aussies batting given what a great cricket wicket it is, though that's not to undermine the performance of the Sri Lankan spinners, all credit to them!
craig swanson
Guest
I posted elsewhere on that topic Dianne. What was the point of using Murali? We needed a top notch batting coach to show our blokes how to correctly play the turning ball in sub continental conditions. CA logic can sometimes be baffling.
craig swanson
Guest
The Lankan bowling was accurate and thoughtful but not top shelf. That was not batting worthy of a baggy green. Where is the footwork. getting to the pitch, reading the length and using all the crease, paddling and sweeping. Do not let the bowler settle into his rythmn. Most of our bunch of no hopers simply plonk their front foot forward and hope for the best.