Halting displays by Australia against the spinning ball in the Caribbean will only encourage more turning tracks when Steven Smith’s men seek to prove their ability to adapt to India next year
Daniel Brettig12-Jun-2016On the face of it, a limited-overs triangular series in the Caribbean would seem to have very little to do with a Test series in India more than eight months away. Yet the itinerary for Australia’s trip to the subcontinent in February 2017 came at a portentous moment for Steven Smith’s team, given they were about to be left red-faced by a trio of South African spinners on a sharply turning Guyana pitch.The choice of Bengaluru, Dharamsala, Ranchi and Pune as host cities for the next instalment of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy meant the Australians will be part of history in each of the last three venues, taking part in the first Test matches to be held at those grounds. Irrespective of that, the events at Providence Stadium likely confirmed that the pitches Australia would face in India would be similar to the tracks of 2013, when savage spin and uneven bounce contributed to a 4-0 drubbing that would have played out even without the unsavoury dramas of “Homeworkgate” in Mohali.That season, as with this one, Australia’s visit was preceded by an England tour to India, and Alastair Cook’s side were able to prevail on a quartet of pitches that seemed far more equitable in character. This was no accident, as proven by the following exchange between an Indian selector and his Australian counterpart towards the end of the series.”We were worried about England’s spinners, so for those games we tried to prepare decent wickets. But we knew your inadequacies against spin, and our spin bowling was better than yours. We knew if we made sure the wickets were extreme you couldn’t beat us.”Whether England can expect the same treatment now that Graeme Swann has retired is one thing, but the ongoing tri-series has all but confirmed that Australian “inadequacies against spin” still remain. The loss to South Africa revived memories of 2013, as a succession of batsmen struggled to find a viable method of survival. Critically, they were unable to see off the vital first few deliveries, when defensive techniques needed to be tight and time had to be spent to read the pace of the pitch, the breadth of spin and the challenge offered by each bowler.The most glaring example of this failing, however, had come in Australia’s opening match. Faced with Sunil Narine’s spin at the closing stage of a relatively comfortable win for the visitors, Glenn Maxwell met his second ball with a firmly planted front foot and a waft through the line as if he were playing on the truest and most Australian of surfaces. Narine breached the yawning gap between bat and pad. The middle stump was disturbed.It was a moment that recalled nothing so much as the scenario Smith has spoken about often, where Australian instincts overrule more cerebral learnings about how to handle such surfaces. “I think you have your plans, but when you get under pressure you get back to what you know and what you’ve learned, what you’ve grown up with,” he had said last year. “So you have to try to get away from that as much as possible to make sure that when you’re under pressure you’re able to do what you’ve practised.”Smith, the interim coach Justin Langer and others have all discussed this adaptation doctrine in the Caribbean, and it will surely be heard again over the Test tour of Sri Lanka in July and then the India trip next year. But words must be backed up with actions and so far in Guyana – at times even during their Saturday victory over South Africa in St Kitts – the battle between instinct and thought seemed to be getting away from the batsmen.One difference from the Australian teams of 2013 and 2016 is a contingent of improved spinners•AFPThis is not to say that Cricket Australia is unaware or uncaring about the problems glimpsed over the past week. On the contrary, the team performance manager, Pat Howard, and the staff at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane have spent considerable sums trying to create spinning environments for batsmen to learn from. But there are wider forces at work that can detract from any such due diligence.An irony of the cricket schedule in the 21st century is that most top Australian cricketers spend more time in India than any previous generation, but do so while playing on IPL pitches that bear no resemblance to subcontinental Test tracks. Next year’s schedule calls for the touring team to arrive for the first of four Tests in early February and leave in early March – precious little time for an effective warm-up period.Among the men best placed to be ready for a trial by spin are Joe Burns and Adam Voges, who are not with the one-day side in the West Indies. If they are not required for the limited-overs matches at the back end of the home summer either, they may be able to commit to specialised training regimens ahead of the India trip, much as Ed Cowan did three years ago. Another variable will be how long Voges chooses to continue his remarkable Test career – the slow-wicket skill he demonstrated on debut against West Indies in Dominica last year will be highly useful in India. But as Michael Hussey showed at the end of the 2012 Boxing Day Test, it is always possible for a valued player to retire ahead of the team’s expectations.One area of difference for Australia between 2013 and now is a much improved set of spinners. Nathan Lyon is no longer that hesitant figure of three years ago, but Australia’s most prolific Test match offspinner. Steve O’Keefe, chosen for Sri Lanka, is a canny operator and well-traveled cricketer. And most promising of all is the young legspinner Adam Zampa, who, in the words of Brad Haddin, “forces batsmen to make decisions off the stumps” and changes his pace artfully.Zampa has not been chosen for Sri Lanka, but it is not difficult to imagine him on the plane to India next year, provided he can claim a useful haul of wickets for South Australia in the Sheffield Shield back home. He has already enjoyed success in the IPL, on tracks far less helpful than those likely for the Tests. In short, Australia’s retaliatory spin bowling deterrent is stronger than it has been for some years.Nevertheless, events so far in the Caribbean are likely to encourage the preparation of more tinder-dry pitches for the Australians to face when they venture to India in 2017. Short of internal BCCI turf wars that infamously helped in the unveiling of a rare grassy pitch in Nagpur in 2004, the only way Australia can encourage the use of any other sorts of surfaces is to demonstrate the adaptability Smith and others have so ardently advocated. Given that St Kitts and Barbados will not spin like Guyana, they are running out of opportunities to do so.
