World Cup 2023: One specialist spinner in the 15 looks problematic – Mark Waugh on Australia’s squad

Former Australian opener Mark Waugh reckons one specialist spinner in Australia’s squad of 15 players looks problematic. Australia has named only Adam Zampa as a specialist spinner in their World Cup team. In fact, the Australian selectors had earlier named Ashton Agar in the initial squad but the left-arm spinner was ruled out with an injury.

Australia then replaced Agar with Marnus Labuschagne, who can bowl part-time leg-spin. The Men in Yellow has Glenn Maxwell in the squad but he is also a batting all-rounder.

Australia’s lack of spin-depth was palpable in the opening match against India at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai on Sunday. While the Indian spinners scalped a total of six wickets, Maxwell and Zampa went wicketless in conducive conditions.

Waugh also feels Australia’s batting was poor as they were skittled out for a paltry score of 199 runs after winning the toss.

Mark Waugh wrote on X while replying Fox Cricket post, “Agree but if they batted better and made 250 they still nearly win. The batting was very poor. One specialist spinner in the 15 looks problematic.”

Steve Smith and David Warner got off to decent starts but could not convert them into substantial scores. Australia slipped from a decent position of 110-2 to 140-7 as they lost five wickets for only 30 runs.

On the other hand, Ravindra Jadeja was the pick of the Indian bowlers as the left-arm orthodox spinner returned with figures of 3-28 in his quota of 10 overs.

Meanwhile, Josh Hazlewood, who took three wickets against India, doesn’t feel Australia are short on spinners.

“Our quicks are our strength up front as we saw tonight. We might come up against these conditions again at other grounds throughout those (remaining) eight games so it’ll just be about the batting group coming up with the plan (to combat the spin) and sticking to it.”
He further added: “I think Glenn Maxwell is a frontline spinner in particular in India. He’s bowled a lot here throughout IPL and one-dayers so we’ve got two spinners and three quicks as a lot of the other teams do. I don’t feel that we’re short at all.”

The Pat Cummins-led team will next take on South Africa at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow on Thursday.