Smith ‘hates it’ but Australia forced to ignore spin
Scott Bailey |
Steve Smith says Australia have been backed into a corner on spin, with Sydney’s descent from tweaker’s paradise to desert highlighting a far broader issue.
Australia went without a frontline spinner at the SCG for the first time in 138 years on Sunday, with Nathan Lyon’s injury replacement Todd Murphy overlooked for the Ashes series finale.
The fact Murphy’s wait to play a home Test will extend beyond Sydney is notable, given the debate at the SCG has traditionally been whether to play two spinners.
But in reality, it forms part of a nationwide question for Australia.
Between the start of April 2013 and the end of June 2025, Australia played a spinner in all 120 Tests bar one.
Australia have now gone without a spinner in four of their past six Tests, with Lyon overlooked for pink-ball games in Jamaica and Brisbane, before Murphy’s non-selection in Melbourne and Sydney.
Across the board, spin has barely played a role for either Australia or England this summer.
Just nine wickets were taken by tweakers across the first four Tests of this Ashes series, and they contributed just 14.2 per cent of overs bowled.
Never before has a five-Test Ashes series had fewer than 20 wickets taken by spin, while a 1980 showdown between England and West Indies is the only series with less than 10.
And unless 24 overs of it are sent down in Sydney, it will also mark the fewest balls of spin ever bowled in a five-Test series worldwide.
Australia’s decision to leave Murphy out in Sydney was foreshadowed on Saturday by Smith, who said the SCG had never been a spinner’s ground in his career.
On Sunday, Smith went one step further and suggested curators had left Australia with little choice than to go with an all-out pace attack.
“I hate doing it,” Australia’s stand-in captain said at the toss.
“But as I’ve said, we keep producing wickets that we don’t think is going to spin.
“Seam’s going to play a big part and cracks are going to play a big part.
“You kind of get pushed into a corner in a way, so that’s the way we’ve gone.”
The one unknown is whether Australia would have taken the same approach in Melbourne and Sydney had Lyon not torn his hamstring in Adelaide.
But even Australia’s greatest-ever off-spinner is seeing less of the action when fit.
Lyon bowled the fewest overs of any home summer in his career last season, and was used for just two overs in the first Test of this Ashes.
Adelaide now remains the one safe haven left for spinners in the country, with curator Damian Hough making clear this summer he doesn’t want to produce pitches where spinners aren’t picked.
“I’ve always said as soon as the ball spins there’s more eyes on TVs and I stand by that,” Lyon said last month.
AAP
