January 4, 2026 could be remembered as the day spin bowling in Australia was officially laid to rest with neither side picking a frontline tweaker for the SCG Test.
Sydney’s fickle new year weather again threw a spanner in the works as a combination of bad light and rain midway through the afternoon brought an early halt to proceedings on the opening day with England cruising at 3-211.
Joe Root and (72) Harry Brook (78) combined for a fruitful partnership to give the tourists the upper hand by the time the rain intervened after Australia bagged three top-order wickets with only 57 on the scoreboard.
Unless they tell Beau Webster to switch from his seamers or give Travis Head a bowl, the Aussies will have to rely on fast bowlers to get the other 17 wickets needed to secure a 4-1 Ashes series victory.
They snubbed off-spinner Todd Murphy for the second match in a row after he had been called into the squad for the injured Nathan Lyon to select Webster for Jhye Richardson in the only change to the team which lost in Melbourne last week.
It was the first time since 1887 that the home side had not fielded a frontline spinner in their attack – the local spinners of yesteryear like Bill O’Reilly, Richie Benaud and Arthur Mailey would be horrified of the thought of this unseemly occurrence at the famously turning track.
Australia captain Steve Smith, himself a former leg-spinner before he became one of the world’s best batters, said at the toss that “I hate doing it” when asked about going into the game without a frontline tweaker.
“We keep producing wickets that we don’t think are going to spin.
“Seam’s going to play a big part, and cracks are going to play a big part. You kind of get pushed into a corner in a way.”
Jason Gillespie on ABC Radio said it was one of the silliest decisions he’d seen for a long time while former Aussie coach Justin Langer bemoaned that “there’s a lot of sameness to this attack”.
Only nine wickets have fallen to spin all series and the Aussies have only picked a frontline tweaker twice – Nathan Lyon barely got a bowl in Perth and had an impact in Adelaide before his hamstring went ping early on day five in the outfield.
The pitch on day one did seam around a bit but nowhere near as much as the nightmare wicket which produced a two-day Test in Melbourne.
Another former Australia coach, Darren Lehmann, on ABC Radio was adamant that the track would turn later in the Test and that “both teams had missed a trick” by leaving their first-choice spinner on the bench with Shoaib Bashir again overlooked by England.
This is all but certain to be the first Ashes series when less than 20 wickets to fall have gone to spinners.
Former Australian leg-spinner Kerry O’Keeffe on Fox Cricket said he worries “big time” about the message that the preference for pace sends to the next generation of tweakers.
“Can you imagine Shane Warne, aged 12, with a McFlurry and a durry thinking I’m going to bowl spin for Australia or am I?” he said with a trademark glint in the eye.
“There are thousands of ambitious young spinners out there who want to wear a baggy green and affect a Test for Australia on the fourth and fifth day.
“The selection ethos at the moment is ‘we don’t need a spinner’.”
After losing the toss, Smith curiously said he would have batted first which was odd given that they had gone into the Test with an all-seam attack.
Ben Stokes opted for his batters to make first use of the wicket and opener Ben Duckett’s miserable series continued when he again made a flashy start only to be undone by playing at a swinging Mitchell Starc delivery best left alone.
Duckett blasted five fours inside the first seven overs of the match on his way to 27 but nicked Starc to Alex Carey with a nothing prod wide of the off stump.
Perhaps showing signs of fatigue after a long series, Starc sprayed the new ball and looked only slightly relieved when he dismissed Duckett.
Opening partner Zak Crawley was more circumspect in moving to 16 from 29 deliveries but Michael Neser rebounded from an average opening spell to trap him in front with the DRS upholding umpire Ashan Raza’s call.
Jacob Bethell again showed glimpses of his undoubted potential in stroking a couple of boundaries on the way to 10 before Scott Boland found his outside edge and Carey did the rest.
Bethell looks a fine prospect but throwing him to the seasoned Aussie lions at first drop at the age of 22 before he has even racked up a first-class hundred is not the way to ease such a talent into Test cricket.
If they want to keep Root and Brook in their preferred spots, England would have been better off promoting batting allrounder Will Jacks from eight as he has a solid enough technique for the role and giving Bethell a whirl at six.
Root and Brook took diverging paths to their half-centuries but as they settled in at the crease, the Australians appeared short of answers.
Smith instructed Starc and Cameron Smith to try to bounce Brook out with a series of sustained short-pitched bowling.
Harry Brook dispatches Cam Green into the SCG crowd, as England's fourth-wicket partnership exceeds 130 with ease.
— Fox Cricket (@FoxCricket) January 4, 2026
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Brook had a couple of near-misses against Starc but Green’s half-trackers were sitting up waiting to be smashed to the boundary and both Yorkshire strokemakers cashed in with his eight overs going for 57.
One attempted bouncer from Green was hooked by Brook into the crowd over fine leg and if the Western Australian allrounder cannot find form with the bat or ball later in this Test, his spot must surely be under threat when the Aussies get back into the red-ball arena later in the year.
Initially play was paused late in the second session due to concerns about the light as dark clouds hovered over Moore Park and after taking an early tea, rain and thunder followed with exactly half of the 90 overs sent down for the day before stumps were called early at 5pm.
Paul Suttorhttps://https://ift.tt/n0p79GL day the spin died: Aussies seam to snub SCG hallowed turf as England punish pop-gun attack
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