Spin Out

GH laments

There’s a story about a team meeting at Geelong, the Aussie rules football club, ahead of an early outing against Sydney at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Contoured for cricket, the ground was short but wide for football, and coach Malcolm Blight threw open the floor: ‘How do you think we should tackle the SCG?’ Centre half-forward Billy Brownless had an idea: ‘Pick two spinners?’

That was the legend, back in the day. Slow bowlers have seldom had it easy in this country: since 1980, visiting tweakers have paid almost 50 runs a wicket here. Yet it was always possible to look forward to something at least mildly conducive in the final Test. No longer: only a vestigial reputation, sustained by the ground’s resistance of the trend to drop-in pitches, remains. Since 2018, spinners have paid more per wicket here than any other Australian ground; last summer only ten overs of spin were bowled here. That trend today reached its cruel conclusion, with neither team choosing a specialist slow bowler, Will Jacks being a part-timer, Beau Webster a part-time part-timer. This despite an easy-paced surface with grass tonsured to 6mm and a warmish five-day forecast.