Re: The Official Cricket Thread
i see what you are saying. if australia had a spinner like graeme swann or anil kumble i would definitely support playing a spinner. but nathan lyon imo does not have enough variation to trouble the indian batsmen. the only time the indians have looked comfortable is against him. we'll just have to see what the australians end up doing i suppose.
Believe me I'm not a fan of Lyon, but I've never seen a game where four seam bowlers played significant roles. The few times I've seen it happen the first three seize the initiative early and the fourth is made redundant, or the batsman get on top and to give bowlers rests and to speed up over rates part timers have to come on and bowl a lot of overs. Now it may well be that Clarke is virtually on par with Lyon at the moment and if the plan is for Clarke to begin taking on a role as a fairly regular bowler that's fine and a new strategy can be drawn around that omitting a specialist spinner but to go in with the intention that the side will not bowl spin at all in the innings is fraught with problems.
Interestingly listening to Harsha Bhogle on the radio earlier in the series he was amazed Krejza is not still in the side, from what little he saw of him in India a while back he thought he was far and away the only spin bowler he'd seen from Australia since Macgill retired with much in the way of wicket taking ability, and I have to say I agree(although O'keefe seems to be made of the right stuff).
