'That will work in our favour': Blues welcome Burns' intent

New South Wales have welcomed Joe Burns' declaration of Queensland's intent to take down Nathan Lyon in the Marsh Sheffield Shield final, with Trent Copeland and Sean Abbott suggesting an aggressive strategy against the competition’s leading bowler will play into the Blues' hands. 

Burns, a long-time Test teammate of Lyon, said on Tuesday that the Bulls will attack the star spinner during this week's five-day decider at Allan Border Field, which the Queensland opener insisted was "generally not a great wicket for spin bowlers".

"We always try to be very attacking against ‘Gaz’ (Lyon), try to put him under pressure. It's a tough place to bowl spin out here," Burns said. "The last thing you want to do is get through (fast bowlers Mitchell) Starc, (Josh) Hazlewood, Abbott, Copeland, and then give your wicket away to a spinner."

Burns also said Queensland’s top-order (which has four players with Test experience in it) will benefit from their familiarity with NSW’s star bowlers.

But Copeland pointed out Lyon, this season's leading Shield wicket taker and Australia's greatest ever off-spinner with 399 wickets from 100 Tests, is accustomed to being underestimated and that familiarity with the rest of the NSW attack is not necessarily an advantage.

"I get on well with Burnsy, I love how honest he is … but he also said, 'We're going to attack Nathan Lyon' – people have been trying to do that for 100 Tests. It doesn't always work," Copeland told cricket.com.au.

"Being familiar (with) or being more experienced than an opposition doesn't always mean you're going to score runs.

"At the end of the day, sometimes being experienced or being set in (your) ways gives an opposition an opportunity to attack you in similar ways.

"Good luck to him but we'll certainly be working towards what we think is best."

Queensland captain Usman Khawaja suggested the final game of the domestic season could become a "battle of the spinners" between Bulls leggie Mitchell Swepson and Lyon, especially given the seamer-friendly Dukes ball is no longer in use in the Shield.

His Blues counterpart Kurtis Patterson agreed the pair are the best two spinners in the country, with Lyon taking 39 wickets in eight regular-season games and Swepson 29 in just four matches.

Abbott said he was looking forward to seeing if Queensland walk the talk against Lyon.

"We'll see when we get our chance to bowl just who's going to back their words up and then we'll go from there," the paceman told the Big Sports Breakfast radio.

"(Lyon) has just knocked up 100 Test matches for Australia and he's pretty good at doing what he's doing … he keeps showing time and time again how good he is and more often than not he comes out on top.

"They can come with whatever plan they want to for Nathan and I'm sure he's going to take it in his stride and bowl well.

"That will probably work in our favour, to be honest."

The Blues will have their own spin headache when confronting the challenge presented by Swepson, who almost single-handedly bowled Queensland to victory when the two sides met in Adelaide earlier in the season.

The 27-year-old overcame a rare neck injury ahead of schedule and returned to take six wickets in the Bulls' drawn clash with NSW earlier this month in Wollongong.

The Blues' top three of Dan Hughes, Matthew Gilkes and Patterson are all left-handed batters, which leg-spinners are generally less inclined to enjoy bowling to given they spin the ball towards their pads.

But Khawaja said Swepson has posed a major threat to lefties this summer.

"He's been bowling beautifully all year," said the Bulls captain. "Every time he plays he gets wickets.

"The hardest thing to do as a leg-spinner is bowl well to a left-hander and he's been making left-handers look silly all season.

"He was bowling beautifully last year too but it just made it hard with the Dukes ball to give him overs so I think it was a really good initiative of Cricket Australia to scrap the Dukes balls and bring the Kookaburras back in (for the whole season).

"We've got spinners back in the game.

"They've got a very good spinner too in Nathan Lyon. It could be the battle of the spinners who knows."

2021 Marsh Sheffield Shield final

Queensland v NSW Blues at Allan Border Field in Brisbane, April 15-19. Play begins each morning at 9.30am AEST

Queensland squad: Usman Khawaja (c), Xavier Bartlett, Joe Burns, Brendan Doggett, Marnus Labuschagne, Michael Neser, Jimmy Peirson, Matthew Renshaw, Billy Stanlake, Bryce Street, Mitchell Swepson, Jack Wildermuth

NSW squad: Sean Abbott, Harry Conway, Trent Copeland, Jack Edwards, Matthew Gilkes, Josh Hazlewood, Lachlan Hearne, Baxter Holt, Daniel Hughes, Nathan Lyon, Peter Nevill, Kurtis Patterson, Jason Sangha, Tanveer Sangha, Mitchell Starc

The 2021 Marsh Sheffield Shield final will be broadcast LIVE in Australia on Fox Cricket & Kayo Sports. ABC Grandstand's live radio coverage will also be available on cricket.com.au & the CA Live app