Steve has selectors in his spell

COMMENT

RHYS O’NEILL STEVE O’Keefe’s unbelievable spell against India took a nation by such a surprise that we’re now confused as to who sits where on the pecking order.

It’s fair to say Nathan Lyon has a spin partner locked in for the rest of the series.

Yet whether he now has a successor is the much broader question.

For a man who took a decade to convince selectors he was worth a gamble at all, has O’Keefe’s spell done enough to push him ahead of a fellow tweaker playfully dubbed the GOAT?

We have the rest of the series in India to find out exactly, but how many more wickets does O’Keefe need to be the starting spinner when the Aussies predictably revert to the three quicks formula on faster tracks?

At 32 and encased in the new mantra of “bolder is better”, O’Keefe remains a seriesby-series proposition.

Australian cricket has no shortage of recent examples of players who were fostered off not long after flipping the world on its axis.

Jason Krejza was no worldbeater but his 12-wicket haul afforded him just one more Test.

Jason Gillespie cover drove his way to a double century and was never seen again.

Injury permitting, O’Keefe will get at least three more Tests in his career.

How many more he gets could come down to maintaining his form as much as the fortunes of the man who’s currently his spin twin.