Land it like Lyon: Swepson reveals how he won Test spot

Mitchell Swepson has confided how he realised the only sure way to join Nathan Lyon in the Australian Test team was to become him.

By doing so, Swepson may well have brought on the neck injury that cost him a month of the 2020-21 season.

Mitch Swepson claimed 5-89 in the first Test in Galle.Credit:AP

Not since Bryce McGain in 2009 had Australia fielded a specialist leg-spinner in a men’s Test. Not since Stuart MacGill followed in Warne’s slipstream had one been selected for more than a single match.

Two years ago, Swepson rationalised that the only way he could seriously contend for a spot would be to attempt to bowl as accurately and quickly as Lyon, while still generating the sharp revolutions on the ball that got him noticed in the first place.

Looking back, Swepson and those around him have concluded that this change, while undoubtedly aiding his fortunes, also contributed to the neck injury.

“I made a conscious effort to look at the way ‘Gaz’ [Lyon] was going about his work, trying to think about ‘how do I get to a level where I’m considered Test standard, where these guys might actually consider picking me’,” Swepson told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. “I was looking at what he was doing – he has great shape on his stock ball, lands it so well, but still able to put good revs on it.

“I also thought the pace that he bowled at was slightly quicker than what most people are used to and it gives them less chance to react off the wicket. So, I made an effort to go a little bit quicker through the air but also spin the ball hard and get that nice shape, drifting in and dropping. Never wanting to sacrifice that.

“I actually had a few of the physios and coaches say maybe that’s why you got the neck injury, trying to bowl with extra oomph, and that might’ve been what did it to me.”

Through this period, Swepson was a fixture in extended Australian squads during COVID-19, bowling thousands of balls in the nets. When he went to Pakistan to debut, he did so with only one Shield game behind him, an attritional affair against Victoria at Junction Oval.

What Swepson found when placed under the spotlight of broadcast cameras, speed guns and ball-trackers in Pakistan was that his chosen method for getting into the team actually had quite a few detractors. That’s part of why he has been moved to explain it.

“It just gives you that bigger margin for error when the pace is a little bit higher,” he said. “What it does is you pin the batsman on the crease a little bit more, and it makes the slower ball a lot more effective when they’re not expecting it.

“I’ve had so many people say to me, ‘You’ve got to give the ball more air, you’ve got to throw it up a lot more’, but I think it’s actually the deception of changing that pace and drawing it back once you’ve pinned them on the crease for a few balls, once you’ve kept them quiet, that’s what actually does it.”

There are those who believe Swepson will, should he be granted more time and trust at the top level, be able to invert that approach, offering more teasing deliveries to aggressive batters and using quicker balls in the 85-90 km/h range for variation. In future, things may become less about bowling to stay on, and more about unbridled attack.

Warne, too, bowled notably quicker early in his career. In the middle of a spell to the hapless Daryll Cullinan in January 1994, his former state captain Simon O’Donnell noted in commentary that Warne bowled “at quite a pace”, making it hard for batters to run at him.

Mitchell Swepson studied Nathan Lyon for ways to break into the Test team.Credit:Getty Images

Either way, figures of 5-89 opposite Lyon in Galle mean that Swepson has now made one indelible mark on the international game. The key to staying in the side, he firmly believes, will be to keep getting more accurate with each passing match.

“As a leggie, I will always want to be more consistent,” he said. “This will be a constant journey until I retire.”

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.

Most Viewed in Sport

From our partners

Source: Read Full Article