“Dizzy, my head is spinning”

Dear Selectors

My head is spinning and it’s you that’s making it spin. With the departures of Warnie and Magilla, Australia has serious spin bowling trouble. I understand that you are not conjurers, but I would like to know why you are making things worse than they need to be.

I’ll explain what I mean. Beau Casson became the number one spinner in Australia in June, when Stuart MacGill retired. Or was that really, “became the number one Australian spinner who happened to be in the West Indies”? Whatever the case, Casson took three second innings wickets, Australia won and while Casson did not set the world on fire, he may have thought he gained a pass mark.

Wrong. Under four months later, when the tour party to India was announced, Casson found himself no better than the third ranked spinner, when the selectors gave McGain and Krejza the nod. When McGain suffered an injury before the first Test, Casson probably felt relieved. Sorry for Bryce of course. But worse was yet to come. Casson found he was no better than the fourth ranked spinner in Australia when Cameron White got the call up. How does a player drop from number one rank to number four without any cricket being played?

I heard some reports that the thinking (I don’t know if it deserves to be called thinking) or rationale was that a spinner was needed to turn the ball away from the batsman. Had the selectors noticed that White is a leg spinner who rarely bowls leg spinners (he bowls googlies) and when he does, that they don’t spin? Had the selectors noticed that there are left-handed batsmen in the India team. In fact, the best of them in this series is Gambhir and he bats left-handed. Casson would have been turning the ball away from Gambhir. I’m sure that would have made all the difference. I don’t know if this line of thinking was true but it’s hard to imagine something so muddle-headed. Australia needs to choose it’s best bowlers, whatever the flavour.

I said before this series that the Australia are going to struggle over the next 12 months and to have any chance, they would need astute selection and good captaincy. I don’t want to detract from the Indians but Australia has had neither of the requirements met.

Best Regards

Dongles