The Serve

MacGill + Hogg + the others = less than Warne

Stuart MacGill. Brad Hogg. Dan Cullen. Cullen Bailey. Boring.

In naming the afore mentioned tweakers in their list of 25 contracted players for next season, Cricket Australia has gone for the oldest trick in the book. Roll out the wallpaper to cover over the cracks.

Try as we might, there’s no replacing Shane Warne, who has happily retired from test cricket and is enjoying the quiet life with his family in Hampshire. He is a man who has taken to the capped mobile phone plan with more appreciation than most.

Despite letting himself go since pulling the pin at the SCG in January, Warne hasn’t lost it.

In his first game of country cricket for the season, the greatest bowler, if not cricketer, ever, pumped out 56 overs for match figures of 8-173. There is something sadistic about his love of dismissing English batsman.

There is one, Grand Canyon like hole to patch over in the Australian test side for next summer, ironically for series against India and Sri Lanka, who between them have produced more spinners than the US military in Iraq.

Stuart MacGill will get first crack, and deservedly so. He is a fine bowler, with a record to match. Perhaps as crucial as his bowling is to the side, personality wise, MacGill’s musings maintain that delicate balance of differing approaches that have driven the all-conquering Aussies His spat with John “Clipboards” Buchanan at Australian cricket’s answer to M.A.S.H over the summer is testament to that.

Brad Hogg has shown he is a wily customer himself. Like Warne, his control of a warped art is second to none. But he turns the ball into the bat, and his unreadable wrong’un causes the bulk of the damage. But unlike in one-day matches, batsman don’t charge down the wicket with gay abandon in tests. Although, India is touring this summer.

Then come the young pups, well, Redbacks anyway. Dan Cullen won a baggy green by default in Bangladesh last year, and has gone backwards ever since. He has been cruelled by the selectors who have only included him in one-day squads where success is conceding under five runs an over.

Cullen doesn’t bowl like that. The most aggressive spinner in the country should be allowed to bowl on his terms. If handled with care, he is a bowler of the future.

Cullen Bailey has been elevated because he bowls from the wrist. He’s returned modest hauls in domestic circles, but yet impressed with his maturity. The fact his action resembles Richie Benaud’s doesn’t hurt. Bailey has benefited from playing under an astute captain in Darren Lehmann.

But leg-spinners take time to mature. He’s not ready for test cricket, and if he’s thrown in, he will become the next Shane Warne. Which carries me to my next point.

There is no next Shane Warne.

MacGill is a wicket taker, Hogg has impeccable control and skilful variation, Cullen is aggressive and Bailey is a good thinker. Warne is all of them in one.

Apparently, former Spice Girl Mel C released a song called “Things will never be the same again.”

Good sort, but can’t sing.

But she knows a thing or two about cricket gauging by the title.

Good luck to the replacements.