Left-arm tweaker Steve O’Keefe will return to Australia’s Test side at the expense of Peter Siddle. O’Keefe, who played his one and only Test at Dubai in 2014, will take on West Indies in the SCG clash that starts on Sunday.
Skipper Steve Smith has confirmed Australia will play two spinners in a home Test for the first time since 2006. Smith noted Siddle’s ankle “still isn’t 100 per cent” and Australia will lose nothing in a batting sense, with O’Keefe a steady performer in the lower middle order do New South Wales.
“He felt it wasn’t best for him to come into this Test match the way he is at the moment,” the skipper said of his rested paceman. “He’s a great team man and felt he would be letting the team down (if he played). “We were probably going to go the two spinners option anyway.”
Smith added the pitch “looks quite dry”. “So I think it’ll take some spin,” he said. “Peter Siddle is still a little bit sore. He’ll have a rest for a couple of weeks and hopefully get himself right for (the upcoming tour of) New Zealand.”
O’Keefe will also have one eye on upcoming engagements too, if his captain’s comments are anything to go by. “Obviously we’ve got a tour of Sri Lanka coming up where (playing) two spinners is a pretty good possibility,” said Smith.
Smith said he was confident that Nathan Lyon and O’Keefe would be a potent force, having seen them bowl in tandem for NSW and the Sydney Sixers. “They have bowled well together,” he said. “Hopefully they can do that this week and he (O’Keefe) can press claims for the Sri Lankan tour. He has got an opportunity now to become the second spinner. Hopefully the guys can get some purchase out of it.”
Rain is predicted to interrupt every day of the contest but that failed to sway selectors away from O’Keefe. “It was thought about but I think the wicket is quite hard and dry underneath,” Smith said. “This wicket recently has been spinning off the grass.”
Josh Hazlewood, meanwhile, has been granted his wish of playing all six Tests this summer. Team management have been worried about Hazlewood’s workloads since the first Test against New Zealand and it is likely that he will be rested from a large part of Australia’s five-match ODI series against India that follows the SCG Test.
“We’ve had a few conversations but at the moment we’re just concentrating on this Test match,” Smith said. “We’ll cover that off after this Test. We’ll see how everyone pulls up.” Smith himself is nursing knee and hip niggles but has no intention of missing a game this summer. “Hopefully I can continue to play and play well,” he said.
If South Africa continue to struggle against England in the ongoing series then Australia will be within striking distance of the No.1 Test ranking. Smith described that mantle as a “huge motivation”.
“We’re working extremely hard to get there,” he said. “It’d be nice to win this week and wrap the series up 3-0.”
Australia’s XI: David Warner, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith (capt), Adam Voges, Mitch Marsh, Peter Nevill, Steve O’Keefe, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon.
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