Brendon McCullum emphasizes on picking spin to win

Despite recurring scores of 300, a trend set in the warm-ups and being duly followed in the main event as well, Imran Tahir was able to extract spin and bounce from batting friendly wickets. The logical thing to do in batting surfaces as these in England is to play more spinners than pacers, believes former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum.

Following Imran Tahir’s match-winning spell of 4-27, Brendon McCullum came out to explain why Australia and England might have missed a trick in their selections.

In spite of tantalizing Australian fans with their squad selection ahead of the Champions Trophy, Australia did not opt for the highly-anticipated ‘Big Four’ pace quartet of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and James Pattinson in their first game against New Zealand.

On the other hand, hosts England surprisingly dropped their leading ODI wicket-taker since the 2015 World Cup, the leg-spinner Adil Rashid. Instead, they went in favor of seamer Jake Ball for their clash against Bangladesh.

It is true that England weren’t harmed by dropping Adil Rashid as Joe Root powered them to victory with a spectacular ton. Meanwhile, rain helped Australia, who were almost staring at a defeat at the hands of neighbors New Zealand.

Including spinners important: Brendon McCullum

However, McCullum mentioned that since the surfaces haven’t been assisting pacers so much, the inclusion of spinners would be of great importance to teams.

“To me, the most noticeable thing so far is the wickets are outstanding for batting. The first thing you look at is the balance of your team in my opinion. And I truly think when the wickets are so good for batting, you probably don’t need as much batting resource,” Brendon McCullum said on commentary during the South Africa-Sri Lanka match.

“So far we’ve seen two teams leave out wicket-taking spinners. I’d like to see the introduction of those wicket-taking spinners, maybe look to drop a batsman or a fast bowling allrounder and try and bring that wicket-taking option into play,” he added.

South Africa, however, made sure they didn’t follow the trend set by the English and the Australians. They backed their leading spinner Imran Tahir, and he rewarded the selectors’ faith with a brilliant spell which dismantled the Sri Lankans.