The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Australia should play two spinners in ODIs

Nathan Lyon of Australia prepares to bowl. (AAP Image/Richard Wainwright)
Expert
23rd June, 2018
68

Australia have long lacked respect for the role of spinners in white ball cricket, but now it’s time for them to change tack and trial two tweakers in their ODI lineup.

The fourth ODI at Durham was an ultra-rare occasion that Australia fielded two frontline spinners, with Ashton Agar (2 for 48 from eight overs) and Nathan Lyon (1 for 38 from seven overs) clearly the tourists’ two best bowlers.

Australia should offer that pair further opportunities to team up, including today in the fifth and final ODI in Manchester.

Spinners for years have been the key to T20 cricket and now ODIs are becoming increasingly similar to the shortest format as T20 batting belligerence bleeds over into one day cricket.

Limited overs batsmen have become extremely skilled at using pace against fast bowlers, as we’ve seen in this current ODI series between Australia and England.

So far pace bowlers from both sides have conceded 6.8 runs per over, whereas the spinners have been comparatively frugal at 5.8rpo.

That economy rate gap has been even larger between Australia’s frontline quicks (7.3rpo) and their specialist spinners (6rpo). Obviously, that discrepancy is partly due to Australia being without their best five ODI quicks in Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, James Faulkner and Nathan Coulter-Nile.

But there’s also a lot to be said for the variety added to an ODI attack by the presence of two spinners, particularly if they turn the ball in opposite directions like Agar and Lyon. Australia won the last World Cup without a frontline spinner, using all-rounder Glenn Maxwell as their only tweaker.

Advertisement

The ODI game has moved since then, however, and on the ultra-flat English decks expected for next year’s World Cup variety, spin will be the key to every attack.

Australia have 17 more ODIs scheduled before the 2019 World Cup starts in England next June, and will also have an extra two or three warm-up matches directly before that tournament. That gives them about 20 matches to tweak their on-field tactics and selection strategies.

Australia already know what they would get out of a pace-heavy attack featuring any three of Starc, Hazlewood, Cummins, Faulkner and Coulter-Nile. What they’re far less familiar with is how a dual spin-unit would challenge opposition batting line-ups.

By giving Agar and Lyon generous opportunities to bowl alongside each other during the team’s next dozen or so matches Australia could learn a lot.

Ashton Agar vs Bangladesh

(AP Photo/A.M. Ahad)

Even if they still decided to go pace-heavy at the World Cup, they would have honed a Plan B of taking the pace off the ball via spin.
Coming from so far back in the field, the Australians need to make changes, to take risks if they are to compete strongly at the World Cup. Trialling two spinners prior to this tournament is a calculated risk given they can always fall back to the familiar strategy of unleashing three frontline quicks.

It would also improve the team’s flexibility if Maxwell’s off-spin was brought out of mothballs. The Victorian did a very tidy job with the ball at the last World Cup, taking six wickets at 36 as he was named in the Team of the Tournament.

Advertisement

Yet in a bizarre turn of events, Maxwell soon after that World Cup was sidelined as an ODI bowler and has barely been used since. This is further evidence of the foolish manner in which Australia have neglected spin in ODIs.

In the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup Australia need to get as many overs as possible into Agar, Lyon and Maxwell. The days of relying on pace in ODIs are numbered.

close