Shane Warne slams Australia for not picking spin specialists for Sri Lankan tour

Australia suffered a 3-0 whitewash at the hands of Sri Lanka in the Test series, before making a brief recovery to register their first victory of the tour in the opening game of the five-match ODI series, only to lose the second ODI by 82 runs on Wednesday.

Australian spin bowling legend Shane Warne feels the national selectors have only themselves to blame for picking bit-part players rather than spin-specialists for the testing pitches in the subcontinent.

Following Sri Lanka’s disastrous tour of England, which saw them lose the ODI and Test series as well as losing many key players, especially fast bowlers, to injuries, Australia headed into their tour of the island nation as outright favourites.

They also seemed to make all the right noises ahead of the Test series, landing in Sri Lanka two weeks prior to the opening Test at Kandy while also roping in Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan to help them acclimatise with the spin-friendly conditions in Sri Lanka.

What followed, however, was a rude shock for Australia as the hosts’ spinners cast a web of uncertainty around the opposition batsmen, to mentally deflate the visitors and emerge champions 3-0.

While it was veteran spinner Rangana Herath who did much of the damage in the Test series, it was the turn of 23-year-old left arm spinner Amila Aponso, who produced match-winning figures of 4 for 18 playing just his second ODI, to help Sri Lanka equalise the five-match ODI series at 1-1 on Wednesday.

With the Australian batsmen continuing to struggle to come up with answers against spin bowling, Warne, making his thoughts known through Twitter, said that the national selectors should have first-of-all picked spin-specialists for the tour rather than worry about the present batsmen getting their game right in the vicious turners in Sri Lanka.

Not happy with Aust's test or one day team. Bits and pieces players who aren't good enough at either are not the answer - specialists are !

— Shane Warne (@ShaneWarne) August 24, 2016

However, Australian skipper Steven Smith believes that the present side is good enough to handle the spin threat in Sri Lanka and believes that the failures have been down to individual mistakes rather than poor squad selection.

Smith will head home to Australia after being aked to rest by the national selectors with a rightly-packed schedule ahead, a move which has since been criticised by former skipper Michael Clarke.

“We have to continue to try and find a way to have success in these conditions, and we haven’t been good enough,” Smith said. “We’ve got plenty of specialists. We’ve obviously got a few all-rounders. But I think they do a good job as well. Shane’s entitled to his opinion, but I think we’ve got the right guys here to get the job done.”