Spinners get thumbs-up on the SCG wicket

NATHAN Lyon’s old boss has some good news for his former apprentice, tipping the SCG wicket for the Ashes Test to break up and offer spinners assistance.

There’s an element of mystery about the pitch, given no first-class game has been played at the venue this season while the surface was redone.

It will also be the first Test wicket produced by Adam Lewis, just the ninth curator in the ground’s history.

However, new grounds manager Justin Groves sug- gested there would be few surprises for the two teams in the match starting today.

“We’ve made a traditional SCG pitch. It will break up towards the end,” Groves said.

The pitch, which still had a green tinge yesterday, got the seal of approval from local NSW offie Lyon, Australia’s only frontline spinner.

“He walked out and said ‘It looks good, I’m happy to bowl on it, so game on’,” Groves said.

Groves was Lyon’s boss when he worked on the Adelaide Oval ground staff before establishing himself as Australia’s top spinner.

England captain Joe Root definitely expects the wicket to turn and will supplement outof-form offie Moeen Ali with Test debutant and leggie Mason Crane, who played one match for NSW at the SCG last summer.

Groves said the ICC’s poor rating given the MCG drop-in pitch for the last Test wouldn’t put any more pressure on his ground staff.

“We feel very compassionate for all our curators around Australia, so to see some comments like that for the MCG, it doesn’t sit well with our team,” Groves said.

Asked if he’d offer Lyon a job on the SCG ground staff once his playing days were over, Groves said: “Nathan is a very good guy, so if he wanted to come and work on the grounds team I’d have no problems with him whatsoever.”