{"id":405032,"date":"2026-01-10T23:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T23:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/405032\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T23:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T23:04:11","slug":"can-spin-bowling-survive-in-pace-obsessed-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/405032\/","title":{"rendered":"Can spin bowling survive in pace-obsessed Australia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many up-and-coming cricketers across Australia, Paawan Sharma dreams of one day donning the baggy green.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old bowls leg breaks for Geelong in Victoria’s Premier Cricket competition.<\/p>\n

He says life as a young spinner can be a grind on Australia’s pace-friendly pitches.<\/p>\n

\"Paawan<\/p>\n

Paawan Sharma practising his leg spin bowling. (ABC News: Darryl Torpy)<\/p>\n

“It’s obviously hard with the pitches in Australia, they don’t offer much to spinners,” Sharma said.<\/p>\n

“Pitches are favouring pace bowlers more, so spinners aren’t getting much of a go.<\/p>\n

“We obviously don’t get [pitches] that turn a lot or bounce, so spinners don’t get much value from spinning the ball.”<\/p>\n

During the just-completed Ashes series, Australia opted against selecting a front-line spinner in three of the five Tests.<\/p>\n

The fifth and final Test in Sydney marked the first time in 138 years that a specialist spinner did not feature in an SCG Test.<\/p>\n

The preceding Test at the MCG was the first to be played in Australia in which not a single over of spin was bowled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Coaches and past players say the pitches weren’t spin friendly. (AAP: Joel Carrett)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Having closely followed the series, Sharma said he was beginning to question what his future held.<\/p>\n

“It’s not great to be seeing a team with no spinners, especially in Australia,” Sharma said.<\/p>\n

“[Spin bowling] is always going to keep evolving, it’s not going to say the same as what it was five years ago \u2014 spinners will keep finding a way to get up there because we are an important part of the team.<\/p>\n

“I guess we just have to find a way to get up there.”<\/p>\n

Similar concerns were raised by 12-year-old Boyd, who messaged ABC Sport during the Sydney Test.<\/p>\n

“As a young aspiring spinner playing under 12s, why has the Australian team made it so hard for me and other young spinners to play Test cricket?” he asked.<\/p>\n

Former Australian fast bowler and ABC Sport expert Jason Gillespie said he “firmly” believed spinners still had a key role to play at Test level.<\/p>\n

“A spinner always plays a role, even if the surface doesn’t necessarily dictate it,” Gillespie said.<\/p>\n

“Spinners are going to learn how to bowl on different surfaces, surfaces that may not encourage spin.<\/p>\n

\"Jason<\/p>\n

Jason Gillespie says spinners need to build experience bowling on different surfaces. (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“I can kind of understand why the teams both chose not to play spin at times in this series \u2014 they probably felt that the Test matches weren’t going to go for five days.<\/p>\n

“But it’s a Test match and our young spinners need to learn how to bowl in all conditions, not just in spin-friendly conditions.”<\/p>\n

Former Australian spinner Ray Bright said the frenetic pace of modern Test cricket was not helping.<\/p>\n

“This Ashes series has probably been one of the shortest, so it hasn’t really given wickets a chance to deteriorate,” Bright said.<\/p>\n

“They’ve been green and grassy from day one, so they haven’t broken up at all in any shape or form.<\/p>\n

“If they keep serving up the wickets they have, well you might as well play a batter [instead].”<\/p>\n

\"Ray<\/p>\n

Ray Bright says greater focus needs to be put on the development of young spinners. (ABC News: Darryl Torpy)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Bright believes more support for spinners coming through the lower levels is critical for Australia to find a long-term successor to Nathan Lyon.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know how much effort has been put into developing and encouraging them,” Bright said.<\/p>\n

“We need captains and coaches to give [young spinners] a bowl and not just go to the medium pacers all the time, particularly on good, flat wickets.”<\/p>\n

Frankston-Peninsula Cricket Club’s Peter Buchanan said the current lack of support was turning many spinners away from the craft.<\/p>\n

“A lot of young cricketers today tend to be bowling medium pace or even faster,” Buchanan said.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Peter Buchanan hopes spin bowling isn’t “a dying art”. (Supplied: Peter Buchanan)<\/p>\n

“There is the odd spinner, but nowadays boys and girls tend to rely on two or three of the skills.<\/p>\n

“You don’t see too many young cricketers that are just trying to learn how to bowl off spin and leg spin, they’re generally batters who can bowl a bit.<\/p>\n

Buchanan said it was “quite possible” the lack of spin seen in the Ashes would accelerate that trend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think there’s still a place in the game for a spinner, but I just think at the moment with these drop-in pitches, they’re tending to be more conducive to medium and fast bowling,” he said.<\/p>\n

“With the white ball format, a lot of these junior competitions, young cricketers are only allowed to bowl certain amount of overs and as a spin bowler you actually need to bowl lots of overs to \u2026 improve your craft and it takes a long time.<\/p>\n

“So, I think it’s an issue but hopefully it’s not a dying art because we need to have spin bowling as an option in all games of cricket.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like many up-and-coming cricketers across Australia, Paawan Sharma dreams of one day donning the baggy green. The 19-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13285,64,63,62916,740,178746,85,1211],"class_list":["post-405032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ashes","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bowling","tag-cricket","tag-spin-bowling","tag-sports","tag-test-cricket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}