Hobart Test pitch ideal for MacGill, says curator

HOBART (Australia)—The Bellerive Oval pitch will be well suited to Stuart MacGill’s leg-spin in this week’s second cricket Test against the West Indies here, the ground curator said Monday. MacGill, who was passed over for left-arm seamer Nathan Bracken in last week’s first Brisbane Test, is pushing for Australian selection with the Hobart pitch expected to be a turner.
Bellerive Oval curator Cameron Hodgkins believes the pitch will lend assistance to spinners over the last days of the second Test, which gets under way on Thursday.
“I expect it to be slowish day one, day two and three. When it hardens up a bit the ball should come onto the bat a bit,” Hodgkins told reporters Monday.
“And if it does go to four and five then you would expect with the natural deterioration of the wicket, you would expect some variation and turn out of footholes.”
MacGill has 169 wickets in 34 Tests at 27.78, averaging five wickets a match, and claimed nine wickets in his last Test outing against the World XI last month in Sydney.
The 34-year-old leggie has been deemed surplus to requirements to the national team over the years because of the availability of world record holder Shane Warne.
But even Warne has been championing MacGill’s cause, saying that he believes he and his spin partner can inflict more pain on the tourists on a Bellerive ‘turner’.
“If conditions suit down there, I’m sure we can do well like we have in the Super Test (against a World XI) in Sydney recently,” Warne said last week.
“I think both of us are bowling better now than we have before.” The statistics show that the West Indies have a history of weakness facing leg-spin bowlers.
Warne, Test cricket’s leading wicket-taker, has captured 54 wickets in 17 Tests against the West Indies at 30.18, while MacGill has 48 in 12 Tests at 31.89.
If MacGill is included in the second Test team, Bracken looks the obvious choice for 12th man duties despite his impressive four-wicket haul in the second innings of the opening Test in Brisbane.
Windies skipper Shivnarine Chanderpaul wants his team to be more patient when they come out to bat in Hobart after being embarrassed by 379 runs at the Gabba.—Agencies