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| February 18, 2003 | Tuesday | Zul Hijjah 16, 1423 |
We need spin back-up now: Aussie coach
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 17: Coach John Buchanan said on Monday that Australia needed a specialist spinner to join their World Cup squad as soon as possible.
“We don’t want to go for too long with 14 players,” he said. “We need a 15th player.”
Buchanan said the tournament organisers had agreed to allow Australia a replacement if leg spinner Shane Warne, who has flown home to face a disciplinary hearing after failing a drugs test, was not cleared.
Buchanan added that, if Warne was unable or decided against returning, it would be up to the selectors to choose who to send out to South Africa but he would favour a like-for-like replacement.
“To me, the option is to have a spinner to come over. If (wrist-spinner) Brad Hogg got injured, that leaves Darren Lehmann and Andrew Symonds as our principal spinners and I’m not sure that’s the best possible combination.
“It will be important to have a spinner in our ranks...who we know could give us 10 overs.”
Warne withdrew from the tournament without bowling a ball last week after discovering he had failed a test for diuretics. He said he had taken a fluid-reducing tablet without knowing it contained a banned substance.
The drugs test was carried out before the tournament and neither he nor the Australian Cricket Board knew of the result until he arrived in South Africa.
That convinced the International Cricket Council that a replacement should be allowed.
Defending champions Australia have some time on their hands. Having beaten rivals Pakistan and India in their opening Group ‘A’ matches, they face Holland on Thursday, followed by Zimbabwe, Namibia and England.
Australia could turn to off-spinner Nathan Hauritz or Stuart MacGill, Warne’s long-time rival.
Leg-spinner MacGill, however, does not have a proven record in the one-day game — he has only played three times for Australia — and also has a fiery temperament.
He was suspended for two interstate matches earlier this month for a heated exchange with an umpire.
Hauritz, 21, has performed well in five One-day Internationals, including four matches in South Africa in 2001-2.—Reuters
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