Australia needs a wide-ranging strategy to combat spin-friendly pitches, says Allan Border

AUSTRALIA desperately needs to find a clear, wide-ranging strategy for dry-wicket cricket, former Test captain Allan Border writes.

Nathan Lyon

AUSTRALIA desperately needs to find a clear, wide-ranging strategy for dry-wicket cricket, suddenly its staple diet for off-shore Tests.

I'm talking everything from how to bowl spin to how to face it, how to prepare Australian wickets to allow our batsmen to face more of it, to the selection of sides designed to combat the challenges of crumbling decks.

All of these areas need urgent attention because the cricket world now knows this is the way to beat Australia and we seem to have no clear strategy.

It was an inevitable as night following day a sharp-turning wicket has been forecast for Old Trafford in Thursday's third Test.

England are preparing wickets to suit themselves and unless we can find a way to counter it we had better get used to it.

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I cannot remember going to an Australian groundsman when the West Indies were crushing the cricket world in the 1980s and saying "can we get a dry turner.''

It never happened. You got what you were given.

But times change.

I hope that when we play England in Australia this summer - hint, hint - we get hard, fast bouncy tracks because that would see Australia at our best.

I am not sure what Australia is doing with its spinners and I sense Nathan Lyon would not know either.

He took nine wickets in his last Test in India but has not played a Test since. Everyone is talking about getting the side to play with freedom but it looks like the opposite is happening.

The players appear to be looking over their shoulder and becoming restricted. Lyon must be down on confidence.

Ashton Agar was chosen in front of him for this series because Australia wanted a bowler who turned the ball away from right-handers but Lyon bowled quite well to the right handers in India.

Australia has been plucking spinners from everywhere and Lyon even had to cope with having another youngster who I had not actually heard of, Ashton Turner, tossed in with him in the touring game against Sussex.

Neither Agar or Lyon may have bowled well in the touring game, but I believe Australia might have to consider playing both - with Shane Watson to be the supplementary seamer - if the wicket looks like turning big time.

It's very difficult to fight the conditions in cricket.

There is a lot of negativity about the whole spin bowling issue (bowling it and facing it) with the Australians but here is the good news - you can improve.

Damien Martyn, raised on high bouncing pitches in Perth, got severely worked over during his early years at spin-friendly Sydney but worked so hard on this part of his game that in 2004 he managed four centuries and two 97s on the Indian subcontinent.

There is no perfect way to play spin.

Martyn liked playing back. Matthew Hayden, another who vastly improved his play against spinners, liked to sweep.

It's a matter of finding the right method for your game.

And working extremely hard.

Sachin Tendulkar has always played spin well and is one of the greatest players the game has seen yet it did not stop him from flying leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan to Mumbai to bowl around the wicket into the rough to him for hours on end in 1998 to condition him for the threat of Shane Warne.

It's called going the extra yard and if Sachin can do it so must Australia's batsmen.

If Australia does play Agar I hope they use him differently than they did at Lord's where he bowled a negative line over the wicket.

It took so many forms of dismissal out of play.

I would rather see him bowl around the wicket and hunt for wickets.