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Punting on Problems

Thursday, January 15 2004

Australia's latest Test captain Ricky Ponting faces a difficult problem as his band of men travel to Sri Lanka, with 3 spin bowlers pressing for selection for all the wrong reasons.

The next overseas tour mounts as Australia's most significant challenge in recent times. Sri Lanka, at home, possess a strong batting line-up led by Marvan Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardene as well as the world's greatest spinner of recent times - Muttiah Muralidaran (Yes, Murali claims this is how he wants his name written).

Add to the mix streetwise left-armer Chaminda Vaas and a host of promising talents such as Tillakaratne Dilshan and Dilhara Fernando, and a loss in their last tour on the Sri Lankan soil, it becomes easy to see just how susceptible the Australians are come February.

Hence, the next few months prove a baptism of fire for the spirited Ponting.

In reflection on the home Indian series, one can see that the Australians struggled significantly in one area - with the ball in hand.

Granted, it's not often that Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee will sit out varying parts of a Test series, but the inability to take wickets that was most cruelly exposed in Sydney must send a shiver down the spine of Test selectors.

There are two significant developments for the selectors, however. Glenn McGrath hopes to be fit for the tour, allowing for the much-missed miser to return to first use of the new ball.

The second, however, rates as potentially the most significant.

Shane Warne returns from a year-long drug taking ban on February 10 in a Cricket Australia Cup match for the Victorian second XI.

Never has a second XI match taken on such gigantic proportions in the immediate future of Australia cricket.

Due to Stuart MacGill and Brad Hogg's inability to provide consistent pressure and wickets for the Test side, Warne looks set to be rushed back into the squad, provided the ball comes out of his correct wrist and lands somewhere in Australia.

Cricket Australia's circumstance with Warne can be described, at best, as unfortunate. After his constant disciplinary problems, at the age of 34 and coming off a drug ban, he still proves irresistible to the selectors and the Australian public.

Better the devil you know.

As it stands, Warne looks the only spinner in Australia capable of causing problems for an opposition batting line-up as strong as the Sri Lankans.

Yet this time a year ago, Australia could claim to have at least two damaging, world-class spinners.

Such is the slide of Stuart MacGill however, it seems painfully clear that Warne will be handed the ball with the Test side.

Despite reports to the contrary, MacGill is struggling. Figures such as his 2/160 on a last day wicket this week in the Pura Cup against Victoria have become closer to the norm than the exception.

His prodigious turn was not enough to trouble the Indian batsmen as a whole despite being Australia's most successful bowler in the series.

It was painfully clear that his stock leg-break was slowly deserting him, and his variations lacked the subtly and class of a Warne or Kumble. His wickets came at over 50 runs each.

Such figures do not allow the selectors to gamble on one spinner, should they play the numbers game.

Yet MacGill earlier in the year had proved an able replacement for Warne - so able, in fact, that he ended 2003 as the second leading wicket taker in Test cricket for the calendar year.

Sri Lanka proves a stern test for the enigmatic spinner.

However, this seems legendary compared to the statistics of Brad Hogg. World Cup hero Hogg, despite showing signs of becoming a reliable, Test class spinner, has taken just 3 wickets at almost 89 a piece in this summer's Pura Cup.

Add to this he was significantly out-bowled by Simon Katich in his one Test against Zimbabwe and it adds to the problems that the Australian selectors face.

Hogg has been included in the VB Series squad but is yet to play a game. To an outsider, it seems a token gesture to say 'Thank You' for his service during the World Cup.

Yet at this stage last summer, Hogg proved a strong acquisition to the Australian squad, bamboozling the Sri Lankans in the VB Series and enjoying his best match in Australia colours beside Shane Warne.

Now, he is treading rapidly evaporating water with his state side that are demanding results. He faces a winter of oblivion at Warwickshire, the county who signed him at the height of his success.

Hogg remains a crowd favourite, one the Australian fans love to follow and take his nervy ups-and-downs.

He now faces a downturn that may have no uptime.

This, in turn, creates the problem. The Australian selectors face the dilemma of selecting an extremely underdone Warne, who has not bowled a competitive ball in anger for a year, or an out-of-sorts wrist spin pair.

Either way, captain Ponting can put his money on problems until the pair find form again, which looks a way off.

However, they may choose to gamble on youth for the tour, if not to develop a youngster for the future even though they are a tier down on the quality of player that is Hogg and MacGill.

Cameron White has been shown significant faith by the selectors, with Australia 'A' matches this summer and talk of further development.

Yet with an uninspiring domestic record to date, it seems as though White simply is not good enough at this point in time to trouble international batsmen, despite his ability with the bat working in his favour.

The Victorian skipper must work on either discipline with gusto over the next 24 months to push for a coveted Baggy Green cap.

Despite the promise he has show in the ODI squad in the past, Nathan Hauritz simply fails to significantly trouble batsmen in the longer form of the game.

Clever flight and variation is effective in the Mickey-mouse form of the game. Match hardened international batsmen of the Test arena will simply wait for the bad ball that will inevitably come and punish it, sitting safely with the knowledge that at such a tender age he is unlikely to send a shiver down their spine.

By the same token, he possesses the potential to become a top-flight ODI cricketer.

The most interesting case proves to be that of Western Australian chinaman - and Hogg rival - Beau Casson.

Casson has proved to be the most penetrative spinner on the Australian domestic scene this summer, recently taking 8 wickets in a Pura Cup match against a strong Queensland side.

His character has shown enough to suggest that he is capable of taking the step to the next level. However, he is clearly the least experienced of the trio and with an already depleted spin attack (in weight if not reputation), Trevor Hohns and co. are unlikely to be chasing Casson come February 20 when the Test squad is announced.

Below the promising trio sit a host of hopefuls who sit at thousands with bookmakers to make the squad.

Among this list is Canadian World Cup hero John Davison, who has proved an imposing one-day all-rounder, yet has a less-than-inspiring first class career record as a specialist off-break bowler.

At this stage, age will be held against him, and as he struggles to really push through the crease at times, which in turn affects his ability to rip the ball, he will remain only an outsider.

Perhaps the most interesting case is Tasmanian slow-left-armer Xavier Doherty. A star at youth levels, he has struggled to gain penetration at domestic level, and a strange delivery stride seems to harm his chances of drift, drop and rip off the wicket - crucial wicket-taking elements.

Allow him time to develop.

At this stage, first-season spinners such as Chris Simpson and Liam Zammit are far too underdone for consideration, and Tasmanian chinaman Shannon Tubb seems to have re-invented himself as a batsman.

At this stage, one thing seems certain - Warne will be on the plane to Sri Lanka. A crucial ingredient at first slip, possibly the best cricket brain in the country and arguably the finest spin bowler of all-time, his selection becomes more-and-more concrete by the day.

As for a partner, the selectors open a Pandora's box that does not necessarily hold any answers.

Posted by Andre