During Australia’s hot run in T20Is there’s been a heavy focus on Aaron Finch, Glenn Maxwell, David Warner and Steve Smith’s batting impact.
Yet their spin twins Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa have been equally valuable.
Australia are on the verge of taking the number one ranking in T20Is after winning nine of their past ten matches with Agar and Zampa running amok. Together in that time, they’ve taken 23 wickets at 17 with an incredible economy rate of 6.17 runs per over.
Agar and Zampa are repaying the faith of Australian coach Justin Langer, who quickly began playing two frontline spinners in T20Is when he took on the job.
Under former coach Darren Lehmann’s leadership, Australia showed scant respect for the role of spin in T20Is despite slow bowlers dominating the slowest format.
While leading domestic and international T20 sides were stacking their attacks with spinners, Australia were stuck in the past. They ignored what was happening in the T20 sphere and rigidly maintained their old-school, pace-heavy approach. That hurt Australia.
During the Lehmann era, Australia were a middling T20I team that never threatened to become elite. In both the 2014 and 2016 T20 World Cups Australia failed to even make the final four.
So pace-oriented were Lehmann’s T20I sides that, during his nearly five years as Aussie coach, only one frontline spinner took more than eight wickets for Australia in that format. That bowler was Zampa, and even he was treated very poorly.
Despite owning a sensational record in that period – 17 wickets at 15, with an economy of 6.0 – Zampa was regularly omitted from the Aussie T20I side under Lehmann’s watch. It made no sense.
Lehmann and his selectors were so pace-obsessed that, in one of his final T20I matches as coach, they picked an all-pace attack against Sri Lanka in Geelong and promptly lost to their underdog opponents.
(Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
Then Lehmann resigned in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal and in came Langer. The West Australian adjusted Australia’s T20I bowling tactics and soon settled upon Zampa and Agar as his spin duo.
That pair set about fixing a major and longstanding weakness of the Aussie side – the inability to consistently choke the run rate in the middle overs. Teams around the world had long been achieving just that by deploying two or even three frugal spinners in the period after the powerplay and before the death.
The impact of having spinners who can blanket the opposition in this phase is greater than it would appear on the surface. The added value is that it often makes a team’s quicks more effective because batsmen are aware it will be tough to score off the spinners and so take greater risks against the fast men.
If Australia’s opponents can only score at 6.17 runs per over against Zampa and Agar, as has been the case in their last ten matches, they are forced to go after star quicks Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins. Being able to manipulate opposition batting strategies in this manner is a joy for captain Aaron Finch. He has control in the field. That control, in a large part, is gifted to him by Zampa and Agar.
(AAP Image/Paul Miller)
After undervaluing slow bowling for so long in T20Is, Australia suddenly have an elite spin combination. In the ICC T20I bowler rankings Zampa sits fourth, while Agar is tenth but will leap as high as sixth once these standings are updated due to his haul of 5-24 yesterday.
What makes this pair work so well in tandem is their contrasting approaches. Zampa is a natural wicket-taker. He bowls an attacking line, entices batsmen into big shots with his loop, and can spin the ball in both directions.
Agar is a natural container. He favours defensive lines and a flat trajectory.
His variations are more subtle than Zampa’s, yet similarly effective. Agar doesn’t possess mystery deliveries – he has no carrom ball or doosra. Yet he typically bowls six slightly different balls in one over, denying the batsmen a chance to easily line him up.
Agar uses the full width of the crease to constantly alter his release points. A slower, spinning delivery bowled from close to the umpire will be followed by a fast, skidding delivery released from the return crease.
Aside from his terrific accuracy, Agar’s greatest attribute is his ability to alter his pace significantly without an obvious change in action. A loopy 85kmh delivery looks much the same, out of the hand, as one of his spearing 105kmh arm balls.
While Agar doesn’t often befuddle batsmen, he also rarely is collared by them. The same goes for Zampa, who is very economical for an attacking bowler.
Together they enhance each other and make Australia a vastly stronger team.
Baggy_Green
Roar Pro
Agar will be a major pain point going into the world cup..not a great bowler, not a great batsman. Replace him with Maxi , Wade by Wells/Cooper and we'll have a chance
Derek Murray
Roar Rookie
Yeah, I hadn’t seen him as a hitter but he closed Friday’s innings perfectly
KenoathCarnt
Roar Rookie
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dungerBob
Roar Rookie
I’m not sure who it was but someone was responsible for continually picking Scotty Boland there for a while. .. This all raises an interesting point imo. What exactly is the role of the coach. Is he merely a manager of the selectors vision of how the team should be or is he someone who sets the policy and moulds the team to fit his own vision? I would say that Langer is definitely leaning towards the latter. Not sure where Boof sits but if he did have a similar brief to Langer then he absolutely deserves the criticism he gets.
Simon
Guest
Yup! Bizarrely even when they picked the squad for South Africa people were telling me I was crazy for including Agar in my XI. He's been the key to balancing our side and we've been a better T20 team since the moment he was picked at 7. Allows us to have both 5 premium bowling options and the 5 best batsmen plus a wicketkeeper. Balance and role playing are the keys to success in T20 and Agar allows us to have this
TheGeneral
Roar Rookie
Yes good performance by our team, but as I don't watch hit and giggle cricket, will take your thoughts on our bowling as top class. I am watching "real cricket" in the test NZ v India, and at the moment NZ are giving India a hiding. We were able to thrash NZ recently and now NZ have the top rated test side in deep trouble. India currently 114/4 needing 183 to make NZ bat again.
The Late News
Roar Rookie
Very harsh Ben. Very.
The Late News
Roar Rookie
Ronan...excellent stuff. Nice to read someone who understands the art of bowling slow.
Paul
Roar Guru
good points Matt, but Boof was only one selector. As for his comments, I suspect Boof went to the Shane Warne School of Left Field Pronouncements. Occasionally they'd both be on the money, but very often listeners were left thinking "what the ........!!"
Paul
Roar Guru
This is not only an issue about spinners, Matt, it's also about how the team goes about playing T20 cricket and where our strengths lie. IF we had guys like Ashwin or Herath who were out and out champions in all forms of the game, I'm very sure Boof and the selectors should have chosen them in a heartbeat, but the fact was we went through a bunch of spinners because no one really stepped up, in forms of the game. It wasn't that long ago, many were calling for Lyon to be dropped from the Test team, when he was clearly our best or, dare I say it, only genuine Test spinning option. It's probably only been in the past few seasons that most have realised some guys are well suited to short form bowling eg Agar & Zampa, while others were suited to red ball cricket, eg Lyon. The other point is team balance. Australia is not a side which will not generally make a ton of runs in short form cricket, but that hasn't been an issue because we've had attacks that could keep the opposition runs in check. That was the concern before the past season - that if we had spinners in the side and they weren't absolutely on the money, they'd cough up a lot of runs. Sure the same could happen to the quicks, but this was far less likely because of the quality of the bowlers. Now the attack has better balance, but only because Zampa & Agar have matured as short form bowlers
Targa
Roar Rookie
Agar reminds me a lot of Daniel Vettori. He is a very useful white ball cricketer.
matth
Roar Guru
As for there being no spinners to pick, I’d say Cameron Boyce was the obvious candidate who was ditched after performing well in a handful of games. Stephen O’Keefe and Nathan Lyon we’re both given little or no opportunity. No spinner selected pre Zampa and Agar have been given any time or leeway to grow into the role. And then when the pressure was on the leadership group turned back to pace heavy, using Head/Maxwell/Finch as grudging afterthought spin. The justification was that we didn’t have the quality spinners of the other nations, but it was a self fulfilling prophecy.
matth
Roar Guru
Yes, the rise of Aaron Finch may have something to do with this as well, so you could really say that the Boof/Clarke/Smith era has changed to Langer/Finch. However Ronan was talking about selections as well, and the coach was a selector. And then you have Lehman’s pronouncements regarding having to bowl 140 to be part of his test plans, so the implication was there.
Paul
Roar Guru
I find this type of piece troubling, simply because the author has basically "bashed Boof" and offered no real reason for doing so. In his era, who did Boof have as a "go to" T20 spinner who was international quality? I'm very sure he would have been happy to have Agar and Zampa if they were as good then as they are now, but the fact is, they've had to mature into the role and yes, they needed a coach with a different mindset to allow them to do that. What about the captains under Boof's reign? How much faith and trust did they have in their spinners? I suspect the answer would be little to none and ditto with the other selectors who choose the teams. Yes these two have bowled well in recent times but again, that's only in recent times.
dungerBob
Roar Rookie
The further we get from the Lehman era the more apparent it becomes that Boof was, well, a boof head. I find his pace obsession doubly strange considering how valuable his own brand of containing spin bowling was during his ODI career. I'm not sure how his figures stack up but I seem to recall him being very effective at slipping a few quick overs in and upsetting the oppositions rhythm.
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Agar is a very bright man. Listen to him talk about what he is working on and you'll soon understand why cricketers develop. His batting is an even greater strength. The issue there is that it is rarely needed and he rarely gets a chance to show it...just a quick wave of the willow in the last few overs.
matth
Roar Guru
Don Freo is the happiest man in Australia this week. Great performance by Agar. We often forget he’s still quite young.
Marty
Roar Rookie
Totally agree Ronan. As you have pointed out Agar is developing into a very skilled bowler both defensively and also a wicket taker, as shown the other night. The improvement in team performance and culture under Langer has been outstanding and his contribution to the resurgence of Australian cricket is as obvious as the ignorance of those who still seek to deny it.