Sayers in FBU despite coming up short

He might not require that extra leg room reserved for quicks travelling on the team bus and he doesn’t threaten the mandated 140km/h benchmark, but Fast Bowling Union boss Mitchell Starc says there’s room in the club for Chadd Sayers.

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The chances of Sayers becoming Australia’s 450th capped Test cricketer have increased in the wake of his match-defining pink ball bowling efforts for South Australia in last week’s Sheffield Shield win over New South Wales.

Which has installed the 29-year-old as the most successful Shield bowler of the past five years, and one of only two of the top dozen Shield wicket-takers over that period (alongside now retired Western Australia seamer Michael Hogan) never to have represented Australia in any format.

Reasons for Sayers’ inability to earn a national call-up to date include his lack of height (he’s several centimetres shy of a six-footer) and a similar shortcoming in bowling speed which wavers around the low to mid-130km/h range.

But Starc, Australia’s fast bowling spearhead who repeatedly questioned all-rounder Mitchell Marsh’s fast bowling credentials when he battled to regularly break 140km/h, believes Sayers has earned a place in the cartel for extenuating reasons.

"(He's in a) sub-section - wickets taken," Starc said today as the Australia squad assembled in Brisbane ahead of the first Commonwealth Bank day-night Test against Pakistan starting at the Gabba on Thursday.

"We'll put him in the group (Fast Bowlers’ Union) before Mitch Marsh – he's an all-rounder so there's little consideration for all-rounders - but Chadd's taken a hell of a lot of wickets in the past couple of seasons.

"So he's straight in the cartel."

A "hell of a lot of wickets" translates to 164 at the miserly average of 23.23 over the past five years at Shield level, 16 more than second-placed Joe Mennie (Sayers’ SA teammate) during that time and 19 more than Tasmania’s Jackson Bird with whom Sayers is vying for the final bowling berth in the next Test XI.

But on top of those raw numbers is Sayers’ recent returns with the pink ball, which is expected to behave even more extravagantly under lights in steamy Brisbane.

The right-armer has claimed 14 wickets at less than 15 runs apiece in his two day-night Shield appearances for SA this summer, including match figures of 8-93 in last week’s narrow win over the Blues at Adelaide Oval.

A game in which incumbent Test batsman Nic Maddinson was the only player to surpass 70 against the pink ball.

Asked what makes Sayers such a difficult proposition when the ball is doing a bit – whether under floodlights or in seaming conditions as tipped for the Gabba this week – Maddinson was sweetly succinct.

"He bowls six balls (per over) in the same area for 25 overs, that's about it," Maddinson said of his fellow Test squad member.

"He bowls a really nice length for swing bowling - makes the batsman play a lot and he moves the ball, which is always a challenge regardless of what pace it's at.

"When the swing was on offer, he definitely got the most out of it compared to anyone else in their (South Australia’s) team.

"He probably deserved more than the five wickets he got (in NSW’s second innings), he probably could have easily had a couple more as well."

While Starc can’t recall having faced Sayers under match conditions, he has seen (and heard) enough to know the uncapped seamer would bring something as valuable as nagging accuracy and subtle swing should he be granted a Test call-up on Thursday.

The capacity to challenge batters’ patience as well as their technical proficiency, which is writ large in the job description for a first-change pace bowler coming in behind the new-ball pair.

"He's not someone who has to rely on pace, he wears batsmen down," Starc said.

"And just that consistency of building pressure is something we've spoken about as a bowling group in the past few months - bowling in partnerships.

"That's something that Chadd does really well, whether he builds pressure or bowls in good partnerships he's able to find those wickets or create pressure from the other end.

"He does his skills-set really well, and that's something we're looking forward to him bringing to training this week and if he gets his chance in the Test I'm sure he'll execute that again."

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