Jrod: Australian spinners – the ugly truth
November 7th, 2008 by JRod in Australia in India, Test cricket and tagged Australia, india, Jrod, krejzaIf you think you know how bad Australia’s spin options are – you really don’t. Forget about Cameron White’s straight’uns and Jason Krejza’s confusing cameo in this Test.
Back home the truth is even uglier. Three games into the domestic season and the number one spinning wicket-taker is Marcus North with six wickets.
Marcus North is a batsman, a good one and as a spinner is someone you bowl before a break, or when your state doesn’t want to pick a real spinner. His career first-class bowling average is 44.
Next on the list is Nathan Hauritz, occasional Australian tourist with a career first-class bowling average of 49 and he has five wickets halfway through his third game. How he still gets a first-class game for NSW is unclear.
Behind him is Andrew Symonds, the best-performed finger-spinner Australia has had since Colin Funky Miller and still in the doghouse over his fishing.
Then Adam Voges, another batsman, who gets a bowl when Marcus North is tired.
Rounding off the top five is Aaron O’Brien of South Australia, who has a career first-class bowling average of over 70 and a career batting average of 25. He proves if you can hold a bat you can get a game for South Australia at the moment.
That is what Australia has to pick from.
They haven’t had the best of luck with their spinners. Shane Warne retires to spend time with the ladies, Brad Hogg retires to tend to his sick lady and Stuart MacGill retires because the fat lady was singing.
Then they find Cricket With Balls own Nice Bryce McGain in an internet café searching dating sites, they offer him the job, he takes it but his arm is stuffed from all those years of moving his mouse around and he can’t bowl.
So what do they have left: a batsman who doesn’t bowl himself in White and an offspinner with a terrible record on the field and not much better off it in Krejza.
Not to forget Beautiful Beau Casson who went from being a Test cricketer to not being a regular in his state side without playing a game in between.
There are young spinners coming through, Jon Holland from Victoria has impressed in his first year and Steve Smith from NSW looks like a real talent.
Unfortunately Dan Cullen, Xavier Doherty and Cullen Bailey have been “coming through” for so long now it looks like they have gotten lost.
All Australia have are part-timers: White, North, Symonds and Voges. And journeymen: Krejza, Hauritz, Casson, and O’Brien. They do not have a spin dilemma; they simply don’t have any spinners.
Jrod is an Australian cricket blogger, his site Cricketwithballs.net won July’s Best of Blogs in TWC
Posted in Australia in India, Test cricket |
November 7th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
This sort of looks like something Jrod would write, except he would have put in more Zombies.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Jrod always puts in Zombies, readers, we have to edit them out. If you would like more Zombies, please comment here and we will bow to democracy.
Jrod also has cats on his own website. He doesn’t like to admit this but they are there. See:
http://www.cricketwithballs.net/2008/08/cat-town-cricket-episode.html
November 7th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
[...] is he the next Australian spin bowling great? Well, perhaps not, but when you consider the options, it looks like he’ll be first in the queue for a little while. The other contenders all have [...]
November 7th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
More zombies please!!
Cricket and zombies are 2 of my most favourate things in the world.
More please more!
November 7th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Keep it real, keep the zombies.
November 8th, 2008 at 1:26 am
Poor Jrod, doomed to be forever remembered for Cattown.
I’ll put in my vote for zombies, though. Just as long as he doesn’t mean Bob Willis.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
you’ve been picked up by cackinfo’s surfer! Well done for taking the establishment down from the inside!
Also, more zombies please Ed, we love zombies!
November 8th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Hate to admit it Jrod but you are on the money when it comes to our bare spin cupboard. You never know, Krejza might bowl us to a win yet. Stranger things have happened.
November 8th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Cant see anything wrong with Cattown.
Zombies, vampires, Matty Hayden - you name it. Yes more!!!!!
November 9th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Where your zombies attacking the ECB? That would explain the editing out.
Re spinners: Are there any decent ones outside of the Indian sub-continent? If you crossed Vettori and Monty together perhaps. Although I suspect they’d need a fair bit of coaxing…
November 10th, 2008 at 1:36 am
Len, I fear you’re forgetting everyone’s favourite Bermudian - Dwayne ‘Sluggo’ Leverock. He’s twice the spinner Monty is.
Literally.
February 16th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
[...] may find the resurgent McGain harder to cope with than the various part-timers and, arguably, second-raters that Australia have turned to for their spin [...]
April 13th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
[...] some of this recent decline is attributable to the difficulty of replacing key players (especially the spinners, who went for a combined 0-73 in ten overs today), but could it also be the case that the current [...]