Australia's uptapped talent

Three spinners are bowling in this game but there are no leggies. It’s a strange sight for an Australian team that has had one on their past six tours of England. In the stands today there was a promising wrist-spinner who operates in the same style as Shane Warne, mimicking his action and dying his hair blonde.

Chris Swain is an 18-year-old from the Queensland country town of Rockhampton and he was walking around Sophia Gardens with his team-mates in the Australian indigenous development squad. He is nicknamed “Princess” by his best mate Preston White, who has batted well in the early Twenty20 games, and gave up a career in hairdressing to focus more on his cricket.

Swain has been picking up some wickets in their matches in London and was watching his first Test. “It’s a fair way, but it’s worth it,” he said. Next week the players will be back in the capital but Lord’s is too crammed for them to get seats at Australia’s second match.

After lunch Daniel Christian, the captain, and Swain met up with Jason Gillespie, Australia’s only Test player with Aboriginal heritage, having a great-grandfather who was a Kamilaroi warrior. It is one of the country’s great cricket disappointments that there have been no direct indigenous representatives. Cricket Australia is desperate to rectify the problem and Matthew Hayden has joined the search since his retirement in January.

Trent Clemments, the youngest player of the squad at 16, has talked about the lack of cricket role models. “I’m really proud of my culture,” Clemments, a promising batsman from Ingham in north Queensland, said. “There are not many idols for indigenous players to look up to in cricket. When I grew up, there wasn’t really anyone. I’d like to be that person, I’d like to be that role model.” He missed his mid-year exams to be on the trip and is deciding whether to move to Brisbane to further his game.

Before the tour the squad attended a camp in Brisbane where the players learned about the 1868 Aboriginal team’s visit to England. They beat Australia’s first Test tour by a dozen years and had to entertain the crowd with their non-cricket skills during the breaks. They spent six months in England, recording 14 wins, 14 losses and 19 draws, and had players such as King Cole, Two Penny, Dick-a-Dick and Johnny Mullagh.

In Cardiff there has been an Aboriginal flag hanging from a stand at the River End and the indigenous representatives are remembering their predecessors. “In the leadership camps before the trip it really opened my eyes up about the culture of the past,” Clemments said. “We touched on it, and saw some pictures, it was a pretty remarkable event. We don’t take for granted what they did for us to be here, to give us this opportunity.”