Australia’s search for a leg-spinner has caused state v country feuds, engulfing Warne and now Zampa

The fallout between NSW and Australia over Adam Zampa mirrors a secret feud which engulfed the great Shane Warne, ROBERT CRADDOCK writes.

The state versus country feud over Adam Zampa has taken Australia back in time to a hidden feud which engulfed another bottled-blond leg-spinner – Shane Warne.

The common thread is that Australia – both now and three decades ago when Warne was emerging – misses not having a leg-spinner floating around its Test team and is prepared to roll the dice to get one, even at the expense of ruffling a few state feathers.

Zampa was given a saloon passage back to Sheffield Shield cricket despite living in Byron Bay, in a move which has caused a dispute internally in NSW and with Cricket Australia.

NSW selector Stuart Clark told the ABC Blues selectors were told by CA to pick Zampa but the leg-spinner told website Cricket Et Al that was not the case.

The State v Country feud is reignited over Adam Zampa. Picture: Mark Evans/Getty Images

Zampa said he asked Australian selection chairman George Bailey a month ago if he was a chance to make the Test tour of Sri Lanka in January and when Bailey showed interest he made himself available for a Shield game against Tasmania for which he was duly picked – but there was no national directive to pick him.

Leg-spinners are prized commodities. Zampa’s talent at first class level – he has never played a Test – does not live in the same universe as the great Warne.

But Test selectors of the early 90s also found themselves locked in a state versus country stoush over the management of the future spin king.

Test selectors Laurie Sawle, Jim Higgs and John Benaud boldly chose rookie Warne to tour Zimbabwe with an Australia B team in September 1991 when he had played just one Sheffield Shield match for Victoria, taking one wicket for 102.

In his book Matters of Choice, Benaud revealed the decision to take a second Victorian spinner, Peter McIntyre, on the tour as well as Warne caused a major fallout with Victoria who, at the time, rated left-arm finger spinner Paul Jackson their best slow man.

“Then the flak began,’’ Benaud wrote. “If he (Victorian coach Les Stillman) didn’t think the Warne-McIntyre Zimbabwe experiment was bullshit then he certainly didn’t think it was much of an idea.

The feud is similar to the era of Shane Warne. Picture: Philip Brown/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images

“He argued the pair (Warne and McIntyre) had been elevated to national prominence too soon, that there would be pressure on him to choose the pair in the Victoria team when they might not deserve to be chosen.’’

Benaud said Stillman’s words may have been uttered “to establish a mischievous proposition that the national selection panel was getting too big for its boots, that it was dictating selection policy to the state selectors, therefore putting the winning of Sheffield Shield game as second priority. Now that is bullshit.’’

History proved the Australian selectors, urged on by Higgs who was a leg-spinner himself and a strident early fan of Warne’s, were ahead of the game as Warne soon surged off to a 708-wicket career which reshaped Test cricket.

But soon after Warne surged to greatness on the 1993 Ashes tour of England his former coach Terry Jenner uttered the prophetic words “Shane will inspire thousands of kids to bowl leg-spin but there is every chance barely any will make the Test team – honestly the trade is that hard.’’

He was right. The search continues.

Originally published as Australia’s search for a leg-spinner has caused state v country feuds, engulfing Warne and now Zampa