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Glenn Maxwell
has not played a first-class match in more than two months but his work
in the nets to master the offspinner's stock ball has impressed
Australia's selectors as they finalise the Test squad for the upcoming
tour of India. The coach Mickey Arthur has suggested a spinning
allrounder will be part of the Test squad, to be announced later this
week, and Maxwell is a leading candidate after narrowly missing out on a
Test debut against Sri Lanka in Sydney earlier this month.
Although he remains far from a frontline bowler, Maxwell could be called
on to fill the allrounder's position in India as Australia adjust to
life without Shane Watson's bowling. The retirement of Michael Hussey
has opened up a place in the lower middle order and Arthur said the
selectors would keep their options open in India, with spin- and
seam-bowling allrounders in the mix along with a specialist batsman, as
well as the possibility that Matthew Wade could move up to No.6 to allow
room for an extra bowler.
"We've tried to cover every base that we can," Arthur said of the Test
squad. "We could play a spinning allrounder, we could play a seam-up
allrounder, we will have the option of two spinners, we'll probably have
as many as five quicks going over. We'll try and cover as many of the
bases as we possibly can and then determine team that plays based on the
conditions that we face.
"We have the option of slotting Wadey up to 6 and playing a spinning
allrounder or a seaming allrounder, but we'll have that position at No.7
available. If we want to go with the six specialist batsmen then that
will be the wicketkeeper's position. Those are the things we have to
weigh up."
The likelihood of spinning pitches in India might improve Maxwell's
chances of playing alongside the frontline offspinner Nathan Lyon,
although the left-armer Steve O'Keefe
has also made a strong case with eight wickets in a Sheffield Shield
match for New South Wales over the past week. O'Keefe is the leading
spin bowler in the Shield this summer with 17 victims at 24.29, and his
overall first-class figures of 78 wickets at 27.33 are encouraging.
It may be that Lyon and O'Keefe are included as the lead spinners
alongside Maxwell as more of an all-round option, leaving the selectors
with plenty of choices. Although Maxwell only bowled 16.1 overs during
the ODI and T20 games against Sri Lanka, there were signs that he was
turning the ball more than in the past and Arthur said he had been
impressed by the progress Maxwell had made since he was earmarked by the
selectors at the start of the summer.
"Maxwell has bowled extremely well, he is getting better and better,"
Arthur said. "I thought he bowled really well in Hobart in the last
one-day game, albeit he only bowled two overs, but there was good shape
on the ball and he did a nice job. In these two Twenty20 games he has
done a nice job. He works incredibly hard.
"One of the things we've sat down and said is if you want to be the
spinning allrounder you've got to put a huge amount of time into your
bowling, because Maxy would always try to bowl the miracle ball and then
he'd bowl a leggie, then try a doosra, he just didn't settle on
anything. All we've got him in the nets is bowling offspin, offspin,
offspin. It's repetition all the time and he's getting better and better
at it. He's a very fast learner."
Patience has never been Maxwell's strong suit, as he demonstrated while
waiting for Sri Lanka to finalise their plans for the last ball of
Australia's Twenty20 chase in Melbourne on Monday, but it is an
attribute he has tried to introduce to his bowling. The challenge for
Maxwell will be if he does win a Test cap to show that he can maintain
such perseverance if the Australians spend days on end in the field.
"It [patience] is something I've had to learn," Maxwell said before the
Melbourne T20. "Wanting things to happen very quickly has been the way I
have gone about things. Learning patience has been something I have
worked on with Warnie and a few of the other guys in the state set-up.
I've done a whole lot of work. I've been in the nets relentlessly for
the last 12 months.
"Shaping the ball has changed a lot, I'm starting to get the ball to
drift away from the right-hander and spin back, which I wasn't really
doing. It was very straight [before]. I'm getting a lot more work on the
ball, my pace and control is better as well. I'm hoping it's going to
be good enough and hopefully I can play in all three formats at some
stage this year."
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here
Feeds: Brydon Coverdale
© ESPN EMEA Ltd.
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