Australia are contemplating bowling two spinners for the first time in 10 years with Stephen O’Keefe in line to partner Nathan Lyon against the West Indies in tomorrow’s final Test in Sydney.
Not since Stuart MacGill partnered with Shane Warne against South Africa at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) in 2006 have the home side played with two recognised spinners and circumstances are tilting in O’Keefe’s favor.
Steve Smith’s Australians have already wrapped up the three-Test series with thumping wins over the out-gunned Caribbean tourists in Hobart and Melbourne.
Photo: AFP
There are injury concerns over paceman Peter Siddle and the SCG pitch has a reputation for taking turn.
Team coach Darren Lehmann has foreshadowed O’Keefe’s likely recall after his sole four-wicket Test appearance against Pakistan in Dubai more than a year ago.
“Our understanding is it’s been spinning. In the games we’ve been watching, it’s been spinning. So I would say more than likely it’ll be two spinners,” Lehmann said. “We’ll have to sum the weather up probably closer to day one and we’ve got to wait for all the fitness on the quicks as well.”
Photo: AP
O’Keefe’s hopes of adding to his one Test appearance have been dashed before, so the 31-year-old left-arm finger-spinner is not over-confident of getting a game.
“It’s so tough to get that second spinning opportunity. It’s been 10 years in Australia since we’ve played two spinners and those two spinners were Warne and MacGill,” O’Keefe said. “It’s a bit of a feather in my cap that they’re considering two spinners given the depth that we have in quicks and given the wickets around Australia are generally more pace-conducive. We’ll wait and see if the selectors go down that path with the two spinners but I’m feeling pretty confident.”
O’Keefe has taken 191 wickets for New South Wales at an average of less than 25 in the decade since his Shield debut and this season has captured 36 wickets in five Sheffield Shield matches.
The West Indies historically have had problems confronting spin at the SCG.
They have not won a Test in Sydney since 1961 and the last time they played at the SCG in 2001, leg-spinner MacGill bagged seven wickets.
Skipper Steve Smith sets out in the first Test of the year having topped the Test runs with 1,474 last calendar year at 73.70 with six centuries.
The new International Cricket Council Cricketer of the Year has scored hundreds in the past two Sydney Tests — 117 against India last year and 115 against England in 2014.
Australia have dominated the West Indies in this series — over the two matches Australia have amassed 1,313 runs for the loss of 10 wickets, with the West Indies’ cumulative total standing at 924 for 38.
The Windies had better moments in the second Melbourne Test than the three-day Hobart shambles, but they still went down by 177 runs.
Skipper Jason Holder is hopeful of finishing a miserable tour on an upswing.
“Our bowlers still need to be a lot more disciplined than we are at the moment,” Holder said. “The pitches have been very good for batting. We’ve been allowing them to score both sides of the wicket, and we haven’t been able to contain them and control the game.”
While beating Australia might be beyond this mismatched touring team and the Windies have not won a Test in Australia since 1997, they will be looking to gain some respect going forward.
Teams:
Australia (from) — David Warner, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith (captain), Adam Voges, Mitch Marsh, Peter Nevill, Peter Siddle, Josh Hazlewood, James Pattinson, Nathan Lyon, Stephen O’Keefe, Scott Boland.
West Indies (from) — Kraigg Brathwaite, Rajendra Chandrika, Darren Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Jermaine Blackwood, Denesh Ramdin, Jason Holder (captain), Carlos Brathwaite, Kemar Roach, Jerome Taylor, Devendra Bishoo, Jomel Warrican.
Umpires: Ian Gould (England), Chris Gaffaney (New Zealand) TV umpire: Marais Erasmus (South Africa).
Match referee: Chris Broad (England).
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS