Greg Chappell hints at an attack featuring three quicks and a spinner for the Ashes opener
Greg Chappell, who is the newest member of the Australian selection panel, has revealed that he would not favour a pace-only attack for the Ashes opener at Brisbane despite the traditional seam-friendly Gabba track.
The statement from Chappell would definitely ease the nerves of Nathan Hauritz, who has been struggling for wickets since the recent India debacle.
In a recent Sheffield Shield match against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-South-Wales-c823 though he earned the side a success from those 12 balls. The rest of the wickets
were claimed by the pacers with Cameron leading the attack collecting match figures of 11 for 52 followed by Trent Copeland, who returned with 5 for 76.
Earlier, Hauritz had a struggling http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 tour last month that ended in a twitter controversy embroiling the off-spinner, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting and the leg-spin prodigy Shane Warne. Defensive field placement by Ponting against
Hauritz’s bowling prompted Warne to post a short blast on twitter criticizing Ponting’s captaincy tactics.
Hauritz, who is busy in his penultimate Sheffield Shield appearance for the Blues ahead of Ashes, however, enjoyed a successful appearance at Gabba last year in a Test match against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760, when he finished with a match tally
of 5 for 57.
The venue of Ashes opener traditionally offers significant support to seamers and in 2008, the Kangaroos had played a four-man pace attack against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 sealing a comfortable win over the tourists.
An in-form Ryan Harris and Peter Siddle are also all set to make an international appearance after long injury lay-offs. But Chappell, the full-time selector of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746, said playing an all-pace attack against an England team having
well in form off-spinner Graeme Swann would be a big gamble. He said that a balanced squad, in any case, would be pitched in.
"That will obviously be part of the conversation when we meet," said Chappell. "Four quicks - I'm not convinced that four is better than three. We'll certainly talk about it. It's hard to go in to a Test match without a recognised
spinner, I don't care what the conditions are like. You need balance in any conditions”.
The hosts will announce their squad for the Brisbane game on Monday and both Hauritz and leg-spinning all-rounder Steven Smith are more likely to get their names in the squad.
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