Australia is a resource-rich country. Minerals and fast bowlers are in rich abundance. But the Pakistan Test tour, as successful as it was for Australia, exposed a scarcity of spin resources moving forward towards six Tests in Sri Lanka and India over the next 12 months.
Nathan Lyon bowled beautifully in Lahore to help Australia close out the series 1-0 but the lion's share of Australia's pressure on Pakistan's batters throughout a brutal series for the bowlers was done by their quicks. Mitchell Swepson made his debut and played as the second spinner in a four-man attack, with the support of allrounder Cameron Green, in the last two Tests. He bowled better than his figures suggested on surfaces that were nowhere near as conducive for spin as what is likely to come in Sri Lanka and will be better for the experience.
But with Lyon turning 35 later this year, the time is now to find out about Australia's spin stocks. And that's why Australia's selectors have named six specialist spinners across the Test and Australia A squads for their simultaneous tours of Sri Lanka. Lyon, Swepson and Ashton Agar have been retained in the 16-man Test squad while youngsters Tanveer Sangha, Todd Murphy and Matthew Kuhnemann, with just 18 first-class matches between them, have been named in the Australia A squad for two one-day and two four-day games to be played in Colombo and Hambantota while Australia's T20I and ODI squads are playing in series against Sri Lanka.
"It's as much about a scarcity of skillset," Australia's chairman of selectors George Bailey said. "If you look around Australia, we don't have a heap of well-established spinners. [Murphy] is certainly behind Nathan Lyon as far as offspinners go. He looks really promising. So it's exciting to get him across there along with Tanveer Sangha who has had some opportunities in the past and Matthew Kuhnemann as well.
"It's a little bit about exposing those rarer skillsets as far as but really important skillsets for these types of tours."
Murphy's inclusion in the A squad is a bolt from the blue, not dissimilar to Lyon's inclusion on the 2011 Sri Lanka Test tour when he made his debut.
The offspinner has played just two first-class matches but starred in his last outing taking 4 for 98 and 3 for 48 against Tasmania to help Victoria reach the Sheffield Shield final. He also made a crucial 24 not out with the bat, adding an unbroken 47 for the ninth wicket in the fourth innings to help Victoria chase down 231 with two wickets to spare. However, he was left out of the last Shield game of the season and the final that followed as Victoria opted to play just one specialist spinner, Jon Holland, at the WACA.
"[He's] really consistent," Bailey said of Murphy. "He's probably played a little bit more one-day cricket than red-ball. Experienced players have found him hard to get away in one-day cricket. Obviously, he had that particularly strong game against Tasmania. We're really excited for Todd."
Kuhnemann, a left-arm orthodox, has played ten first-class matches but already has three five-wicket hauls in Shield cricket for Queensland. Sangha has played six first-class matches taking 17 wickets for New South Wales but the talented legspinner has been on Australia's radar having toured twice with the T20I squads in 2021. All three youngsters could play for Australia A with Swepson and Agar unlikely to be given a warm-up for the Tests given both men will be needed in Australia's T20I and ODI series. The two Australia A four-day games run from June 14 to June 24, which is the precise duration of the five-match ODI series. Swepson and Agar are the two specialist white-ball spinners in Australia's squads as Adam Zampa is missing the tour due to the birth of his child, and Lyon is not in the white-ball set-ups.
Whether Australia opt for three spinners in the Test team remains to be seen. They played two spinners for two Tests in Pakistan, leaving out Josh Hazlewood, and yet Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins combined for 20 wickets in the series while Lyon and Swepson took just 14, with Lyon bagging 12 including five in the final innings in Lahore. Marnus Labuschagne only bowled 31 overs in the series, including just four in the final two Tests when Swepson played, and just one out of 171.4 overs in the final innings in Karachi where Pakistan famously held on for a draw. Labuschagne has a better strike rate with the ball in both Test and first-class cricket than Agar, who last played a Test in 2017 in Bangladesh as part of a three-pronged spin attack.
Bailey said three spinners won't be ruled out of the equation for the two Tests in Galle, with the first starting on June 29.
"Recent history in Galle would suggest that it's going to be conducive to spin so there's a chance that we go in with a similar sort of makeup to what we did finish with in Pakistan, with the extra spinner and one fast bowler short," Bailey said.
"I think we have to be open to the possibility of playing three spinners. We have seen it done once in the past, I think, in a Test match in Bangladesh. And again, we'll just assess that. That's one of the great things about having a little bit of depth in that area with Ash Agar, Mitch Swepson, and Nathan Lyon, you've got all bases covered there. And some exciting young Aussie A spinners as well so good to expose them to Sri Lankan conditions."