Adelaide curator on importance of having spin in the wicket saying he doesn’t want to produce pitches “where you don’t pick a spinner”.
Despite having bowled just two overs in the Ashes series thus far, Nathan Lyon highlighted the significance of the job in Australia, therefore Damien Hough does not want to be the first Adelaide curator in the legendary history of the Adelaide Oval to design a Test pitch where a spinner is unnecessary.
Hough attended a ceremony on the western side when Lyon was added to the Avenue of Honour, which honours some of the greatest Test performances at the stadium. On Monday, Lyon and Hough embraced at Adelaide, a place where they used to work together.
Lyon joined Mitchell Johnson, Shane Warne, Sir Donald Bradman, and others on the Chappell Stand’s outer wall after taking 12 wickets against India in 2014.
However, it coincides with Lyon’s stagnation at 562 Test wickets, two shy of surpassing Glenn McGrath to become Australia’s second-all-time Test bowler. Lyon was left out of two of the previous three Tests and only bowled two overs during the game at the beginning of this Ashes series.
Despite England’s decision to keep part-time offspinner Will Jacks ahead of their No. 1 spinner Shoaib Bashir, Hough is certain Adelaide Oval will spin this week as it did in the three-day Sheffield Shield games at the stadium this season, and Lyon is set to return to Australia’s XI.
“[Spin is] really important,” Hough said on Monday. “I don’t want to be the curator at Adelaide where you don’t pick a spinner. Spin needs to play a part here. It always has. Even last year when [Lyon] didn’t bowl a lot of overs, I felt that the pitch would have spun. But Pat [Cummins] was able to take wickets with the quicks but spin needs to play a part in pitches around Australia, and we want it to play a part.”
In his last two red-ball Test matches in Australia, Lyon has bowled just eight overs overall. In the January SCG Test against India, he bowled just six overs, and in the inaugural Ashes Test in Perth, he bowled just two. He was questioned about the significance of Australian curators continuing to create pitches that do let spinners to participate.
“Well, you’re asking a spinner,” Lyon said. “I think it’s incredibly important. I think the variation in Test cricket, understanding that Test cricket goes for five days, and there’s a lot of opportunity for pitches to wear and spinners to be able to produce their craft.
“I’ve always said as soon as the ball spins there’s more eyes on TVs, and I stand by that. You look at when we go over to India, and you look at the conditions there, and the exciting cricket when the ball is spinning, how many people pay attention to it. So for me, spin is incredibly important in the game of cricket, in junior cricket, in first-class cricket, in white-ball, red-ball, it doesn’t matter what format, what game of cricket, I think spin plays a massive role here.”