Has the world stopped spinning?

In HG Wells short story The Man Who Could Work Miracles, the bumbling George McWhirter Fotheringay invokes a spell which stops the world from spinning. As a result, everything is hurled from the planet, and only George remains. In that instant, he, naturally, regrets what he’s done and wishes for things to be restored to the way they were. His wish is granted, and the story ends with the accidental agent of chaos back with his mates in a bar.

Hopefully, cricket finds its way back to the bar following a summer where the ancient art was rendered redundant by pink balls, green pitches and teams who figured they could exist without contributions from cricket’s most compelling craftspeople.

An anonymous northern hemisphere pundit labelled the Ashes spin bowling’s “nuclear winter” and while they were primarily referring to an English side which did not pick a frontline slow bowler in any of the five Test matches, Australian selectors did not field a specialist spinner for the day night Test in Brisbane and then in Sydney where no home side had taken a field without such since 1880.

Nathan Lyon may as well have been left out of the Perth too, where his total contribution to the bowling effort amounted to just 12 deliveries. The veteran had been similarly absent from Australia’s previous Test, a short, sharp and deflating day-night affair against the West Indies.

The absence of a spinner in Sydney, even accounting for the unavailability of Lyon, was the most depressing turn of events; further confirmation of Test cricket’s enshittification a few days after the MCG debacle, and a few short weeks from a similar premature ejaculation in Perth. Not that long back the SCG was the one venue in Australia where teams considered two front-line spinners.

If the slow bowler was to become a part-time scene sweller, an attendant lord good only to let the retinue of quicks catch their breath, a pick contingent on their ability with the bat, if Test cricket was to stop spinning, the game and we who love it would lose so much.

Dennis Lillee made me fall in love with cricket, but Shane Warne mesmerised batters and fans to the point where it was impossible not to be seduced. You simply had to watch cricket when Warrne played.

What would he think of the 2025-26 spin snub? Suffice to say, the Australian camp was lucky he was nowhere within reach of a microphone or their throats.