Plans in spin at ‘son of a pitch’

AUSTRALIA’S carefully laid first Test plans went haywire last night after a hellish pitch in Pune forced selectors to consider the extreme option of dropping a fast bowler.

Captain Steve Smith sounds hopeful that Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Marsh will all still be backed to unleash an assault of reverse swing bowling, but so alarmed are the tourists by the state of a crusty pitch littered with divots, that a three-pronged spin attack is now being discussed in earnest, with a final decision to come in the morning.

Smith, who will take the bull by the horns and bat at No.3, claims he’s never seen a wicket like it.

Ashton Agar shapes as the spinner most likely to join Nathan Lyon and Steve O’Keefe in the attack if pretour plans are thrown out the window, with Hazlewood the man most in the firing line to make way.

However, with a potentially series-defining decision about to be handed down, the man after whom the series trophy is jointly named, Allan Border, has spoken out and urged selectors to back their original instincts that fast bowling is their greatest asset even away from home.

Test great Border is fearful that Australia’s spin stocks won’t be good enough to beat India regardless of how shocking the pitch might present.

“I don’t think we can beat them with spin,” said Border, in a damning assessment on Sky Sports Radio.

Pune’s son of a pitch has produced the mother of all selection conundrums.

Hazlewood is one of the best fast bowlers in the world, with pace the stronghold of this attack, but at the same time Australia will be painfully aware that they’ve been caught a spinner short in India in the past, and the consequences can be devastating.

Indian captain Virat Kohli admits the pitch will struggle to hold together under the punishing Pune sun and will pick three spinners, with counterpart Steve Smith torn on whether to follow suit.

“It’s been talked about. But we’ll wait and see what we go with there,” Smith said.

“I still think that the fast bowlers will be able to get the ball to reverse quite quickly.

“Training on the wickets they were similar to the middle, without being as dry and crusty and the ball broke up quite quick.

“I think we can see reverse swing happen quite quickly, but it’s going to spin there’s no doubt about that.

“So it’s (three spinners) is an option. We’ll wait and see.”