Australia need to derive a strategy to play Spin

Matthew Hayden spent countless hours practising the sweep shot on a dry Allan Border pitch before the Indian tour of 2001. Damien Martyn allegedly watched innumerable tapes of Tendulkar and Dravid's footwork against spinners before the 2004 Indian tour.  Both batsmen went on to top the series averages in the respective tours.  

By the way the Australian batsmen handled Sri Lankan spinner, Rangana Herath at the SCG this week it is imperative they devise a solution to tackle spin ala Hayden and Martyn.

Apart from Michael Clarke, each of the other batsmen looked clueless against the guile of Hearth. There only line of attack was to get their pad outside the line of the stumps and attempt an extravagant sweep.  The shot eventually led to the demise of Cowan, Hughes and Wade.

Relying on the sweep shot could prove fatal

 

Relying solely on the sweep against spinners in the sub-continent is a disaster beckoning as the English found out against Pakistan in February last year [England lost 3-0].  To their credit the English batsmen came back to the sub-continent with fresh strategies to tackle spin and beat India only eight months later.

The catalyst of the England victory was their captain Alastair Cook. Ed Cowan might be long way off Alastair Cook as yet but there batting technique strike a resemblance.  Apart from both being left handed, both score majority of the runs off the bat foot, horizontal shots are foundations of their game and both like to accumulate. As Ed Cowan takes a breather from the ODI’s, it might be wise to watch tapes of Alastair Cook’s tactics to counter the Indian spinners.

The other option for Cowan and his other sweep happy mates is to practice the shot persistently on a dry wicket against spinners, like Matthew Hayden did leading up to the Indian tour. But that is a distant thought considering players such as Wade, Warner and Hughes will be all be featuring in white ball cricket on bouncy pitches at home up until seven days before the first test match in Delhi.

If there was any assurance then in comes in the form of Indian spinners.  Ravi Ashwin and Pragyan Ojya are still relatively new to test cricket and are still learning the art of out smarting the batsmen and breaking down their strategies. Other consolation for likes of Cowan, Warner, Wade and co is the pitches they played on in the West Indies last year were similar to those they will face in India. 

But even in the series against a West Indies the batting was exposed by a mediocre spinner in Shane Shillingford and the part time spin of Narsinh Deonarine.  West Indies meager batting and Australia’s series victory ensured the spin deficiencies were swept under the carpet. One guarantee is Australia will need more runs against India than they scored against West Indies, if they are to have any hope of winning test matches.

Michael Clarke not only needs to score heavily again but also needs to pass on his expertise of playing spin bowling to his batting comrades.  Judging by the test in Sydney, Australia face a stern test and unless a formula is derived on tackling spin bowling a series victory is unlikely.