I Think We Need To Start Looking At Three Spinners - Steve O’Keefe On Australia’s Tour Of Sub-Continent
Former Australia spinner Steve O’Keefe reckons the Australian team needs to make space for as many as three spinners whenever they tour spin-friendly places like the sub-continent. This should keep them in good stead ahead of their tours of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka next year, as per O’Keefe.
Recently, Australia’s weakness against spin was exposed, not for the first time, against Bangladesh. They couldn’t deal with the amount of assistance the Bangladeshi spinners managed to extract. Going into future tours, O’Keefe said Australia needs to groom more of the slow bowlers.
“I think we’re in as good a place as we’ve ever been from a bowling point of view. With Ashton [Agar] batting as well as he is, you could play three. I think we need to start looking at three spinners as well as a quick and a medium pacer. That would be my five bowling options in some of the conditions you encounter over there [sub-continent].“
Steve O’Keefe feels Nathan Lyon and Ashton Agar will be Australia’s best bet
Team India has spin-twins Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja bowling in tandem on turning tracks. They even added Axar Patel to strengthen their spin department. Similar to that, Australia needs Nathan Lyon and Ashton Agar to get some game time together.
“The beauty of playing Nathan Lyon with Ashton Agar is, Nathan is an attacking, over-the-top spin bowler who can be aggressive, then someone like Ashton could really control [from one end] and bring the run rate down to two or three an over. When you look at the Indian spinners (Ashwin and Jadeja), that’s genuinely how they work – one will contain and one will be the wicket-taker.“
Lyon was Australia’s second-best bowler in the WTC 2021-23 after Pat Cummins. He finished joint-fourth in the highest wicket-takers list, having scalped 56 wickets for Australia. Agar on the other hand has just played four Tests in his career since debuting in 2013.
“I think it’s important for those guys to get some opportunities to bowl together, whether that’s in some lead-up games for Aussie A or tour games over there, to get the synergy right of bowling together. I think they’ll have success,” he concluded.
For now, the Aussies are up against Bangladesh in a T20I series. It’s part of their preparation for the upcoming 2021 T20 World Cup. They’ve already lost the series 1-3, with one game remaining.
