Come in, spinners

The seaming wickets that reduced many Bupa Sheffield Shield fixtures to barely three days and raised concerns among respected judges including Michael Hussey and Darren Berry have been replaced by more competitive strips on which batsmen and spin bowlers have grasped their opportunities.

After no batsman reached 1,000 Shield runs last summer - the mark that has long been considered the yardstick by which potential Test players are measured - at least seven players are on track after a month of the current season having surpassed 350 runs.

That list comprises Test-capped Marcus North (589), Cameron White (447), Rob Quiney (378) and Ed Cowan (353) along with Tasmania’s Jordan Silk (369), South Australia’s Tom Cooper (351) and his teenage teammate Travis Head (437).

Perhaps even more revelatory has been the return of the spinners, recently considered a threatened species at Australia’s domestic first-class level where pacemen ruled.

The competition’s three leading wicket-takers – Johan Botha (19), Cameron Boyce (19) and Steve O’Keefe (15) – are spinners.

Last summer, the 15 leading Shield wicket-takers were all pace bowlers with O’Keefe (24 wickets) the most successful spinner.

The shift in balance reflects a policy decision made by Cricket Australia in the wake of the Australian team high performance review conducted in 2011 by a panel chaired by Don Argus and comprising former Test captains Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh.

In that review, the preparation of pitches for Sheffield Shield matches was identified as an issue that needed to be urgently addressed.

Cricket Australia’s Executive General Manager, Team Performance, Pat Howard, said the initial returns from the first four rounds indicated that the push to ensure a more even contest between bat and ball was achieving the report’s objectives.

He said the fact that the number of wickets captured by spinners had increased by more than 100 on the first four rounds of matches in 2012-13 as well as the ratio of wickets to pace v spin (62:38) reversed a worrying trend of recent summers.

“The positive result from our end is that we’re getting roughly the same number of fast bowling overs, so the quicks are still getting their opportunities but whereas there was three days of cricket (in Shield matches) last year we are now getting four,” Howard said.

“That means the spinners have a chance to get wickets, and also that batsmen are getting a raft of opportunities against pace and spin.

“We’re not saying we’ve fixed everything and we’ll make a proper assessment at the end of the season.

“But I certainly didn’t expect the impact of spin to be quite so strong, and the amount of overs bowled by spinners (1485 in the first four rounds this year compared to 1767 for all of last summer) has been one of the real surprises.”

West Australian coach Justin Langer indicated that part of that change has come about because of the changed schedule in which the first five rounds of Shield matches have been compacted into six weeks, and therefore spinners have bowled more overs to lessen workload on fast bowlers.

He also pointed to the ratio of outright results to drawn matches –five results compared to seven draws – to caution against the preparation of pitches that are too flat.

But he welcomed the fact that batsmen were getting an opportunity to develop their skills against spin and rated the pitch that his team has played on in two matches at the WACA as “a fantastic surface”.

“We’ve been happy to win the toss and bat first at the WACA and that’s probably been a change in strategy from the past five or six years,” Langer said.

“What’s more, we’ve had two results here that weren’t necessarily decided on how teams batted in the first innings.

“If I was to be honest, I think the wicket we played on in Adelaide was too flat but I understand that’s been newly laid, and the game we played at the MCG went right down to the wire.

“So all up I think it’s been excellent, I just want to make sure we maintain a balance so we’re not wearing out fast bowlers and that we still get outright results because that’s how we’ve always played our cricket in Australia.”

Howard said this summer’s schedule was designed to allow players a short break between the Ryobi Cup 50-over format and the start of the Sheffield Shield season to help them better make the transition to red ball cricket.

“We’ve had 20 centuries scored so far this season across four rounds of matches, and we had a total of 31 (in the 10 rounds plus final) last year,” he said.

“So the national selectors and talent managers are really pleased with the quality of performances they’ve seen with both bat and ball so far this summer.”