Selectors raise stakes on Hauritz

Nathan Hauritz has won a national contract for the first time in six years, but now he is viewed as Australia's main man instead of back-up for Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. Hauritz was the only specialist spinner picked in the 25-man group on Thursday and his unexpected re-emergence highlights the falling away of the country's slow-bowling stocks while providing an opening for a long-term adventure.

A week before his Test return in November Hauritz was omitted from the New South Wales side, but an ankle injury to the national incumbent Jason Krejza, who until then had experienced similar good fortune, allowed some international space for Hauritz. He has done enough to stay with the side and convince the selectors he is the man for the future, but has been criticised, most recently by Ian Chappell, for his defensive method.

"I try to stay away from it as much as I can," Hauritz said of the public analysis. "It's not my job to report on what we do. The most important thing I can do is bowl well. As long as I'm prepared, that's all I can do. I know that at the moment it's a good talking topic. It's always going to be."

Hauritz last held a full national contract in 2003-04, the season before his Test debut, but he faded as quickly as some of the contenders since MacGill's retirement last year. Krejza, Beau Casson and Cameron White were quickly crossed off as bowling options - in decisions ranging from sensible to strange - and Bryce McGain appears to be headed the same way after he missed a contract following a punishing welcome in March.

That leaves Hauritz to control the major spin duties along with the part-timers of Marcus North and Michael Clarke. He did not play a Test in South Africa but has appeared in every one-day match since the end of the home season, topping the wicket list with eight victims in the five Pakistan encounters.

Despite the confusing nature of the spin hierarchy, Hauritz is comfortable as the man with the best grip on the roundabout. "I haven't minded it," he said. "The one thing is it has made more competition for spots, and you just enjoy your time there all the time.

"There's such a good breed of fast bowlers coming through who are the same age, and when those fast bowlers are picked the side wins. The focus is a little bit off the spin bowling, but there's always a spot for a spin bowler in a Test. We're just part of the unlucky situation coming after Warne and MacGill."

Further confirmation of Hauritz's anointment should come on Wednesday with the naming of the Ashes squad. "I'm trying not to focus on it," he said. "I didn't play any cricket in South Africa to put my name up for the Test squad, so it's really up to the selectors, what way they want to go, whether it's Bryce or myself. There's not a great deal I can do. Fingers crossed that I get picked, if I don't then that's part of life."

Hauritz understands how it works in the national set-up works and that a player in his situation is never safe. "You still wait to know, you're still trying to work things out and I guess you never really do feel secure," he said. "It can all be gone away so quickly." Spinners all over the country know that feeling.