By IANS
Adelaide : Spin guru Terry Jenner wants Brad Hogg to tinker with his bag of tricks to help save his place in the Australian Test team, Herald Sun has reported.
Hogg appears all but certain to play in Adelaide after missing his home Test in Perth, where Australia misread the conditions and unleashed a four-man pace attack.
Australia is expected to select three quicks for the fourth Test, beginning Thursday.
Hogg was disappointing on the final day of the second Test in Sydney when he finished wicketless as part-time spinner Michael Clarke provided the killer blow.
With Stuart MacGill back in training after surgery to repair carpal tunnel syndrome in the right hand, the pressure is on Hogg to contain India’s batsmen.
Jenner, Shane Warne’s long-time mentor, says the bubbly left-arm wrist-spinner must use greater flight.
“He’ll know there mightn’t be too many moments past this one,” Jenner said Monday.
“In Sydney, he bowled too quick.
“He bowled like you knew you were getting a chance and you were getting a bit desperate. I thought he bowled consistently too quick.
“He just needs to mix his pace up a bit, that’s all.”
A concern for Hogg is that his stock ball spins into the pads of right-handers Sachin Tendulkar, V.V.S. Laxman and Rahul Dravid, which makes it easier to pick off.
“I think he discovered just having a googly isn’t the answer,” Jenner said.
“He just needs to bowl more stock balls, but I felt like his pace was pretty predictable, in the mid-80km/h and above.
“He had a pitch there (in Sydney) he was trying to get something out of and maybe he was encouraged to push them through to keep the batsmen on the crease.
“You don’t know what advice he has been given.”
Jenner’s comments come after another former Test spinner, Kerry O’Keeffe, last week questioned Hogg’s worth in the side.
Hogg began the series with four wickets in Melbourne, including fooling left-handers Sourav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh with lethal flippers.
But in Sydney he took 2-121 in the first innings and had the wobbles in the second, leaving him with a series of 51.50.
Hogg must now conquer an Adelaide deck that Warne used to bowl Australia to a memorable victory against England on the final day last summer.
“It’s an enormous amount of pressure when you are a spin bowler and expected on the last day to bowl the opposition out, especially when you haven’t had a chance for about five or six years,” Jenner said.
“It’s a challenge for him, but he has to do it his way.
“He will get a lot of advice. But he is 37 years of age. If he doesn’t know his own game now, he never will.”