Stand up to the spinners and succeed

Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says Australia face a stiff challenge to overcome the top-ranked South Africa in the one-day series. He writes that the visitors’ most pressing need in the five matches is to score more runs against the spinners.

To watch the batsmen pushing and prodding against Johan Botha and even JP Duminy in recent meetings was to see supposedly formidable batsmen reduced to a state of semi-paralysis. From the top downwards, the batting lacked inventiveness, placement, boldness and intelligence.