Match Analysis

After endless wait, a testing initiation

Steve O'Keefe is accurate, has a good arm ball, and an excellent first-class record, but might need more than that to succeed in Test cricket

Steve O'Keefe ended his first innings as a Test bowler with figures of 2 for 107 from 30 overs  •  Getty Images

Steve O'Keefe ended his first innings as a Test bowler with figures of 2 for 107 from 30 overs  •  Getty Images

"I didn't think it was ever going to come, to be honest," Steve O'Keefe said of his first Test wicket. He could easily have been describing his first Test.
Only once before this had O'Keefe been in a Test squad. That was in 2010, when he replaced the injured Nathan Hauritz for the series against Pakistan in England. Back then, Steven Smith was considered a bowler, and was preferred. After returning home uncapped, O'Keefe went through a spate of rejections that suggested he might never play for his country.
When Andrew Hilditch's selection panel chose the squad for the first Ashes Test in 2010-11, O'Keefe had picked up 11 first-class wickets for the summer at 18.45, including a four-wicket haul against England for Australia A. Xavier Doherty had the same number of wickets at an average of 27.45.
Doherty was picked, O'Keefe was ignored.
Doherty failed in Brisbane and Adelaide, and Australia needed another spinner. They added Michael Beer to the squad but played four fast men for the Perth and Melbourne Tests. By the time the Sydney Test came around, O'Keefe had 16 first-class wickets for the summer at 16.93. Beer had 16 as well, but at 43.31.
Beer was picked, O'Keefe was ignored.
O'Keefe finished that Ashes summer as the equal leading spinner in the Sheffield Shield, with 22 wickets at 20.31 Doherty had 22 at 28.18. After a disappointing 2011-12, O'Keefe was on song again in 2012-13. When the squad was named for the 2013 tour of India, O'Keefe had 17 first-class wickets for the summer at 24.29; Doherty had two at 80.00.
Doherty was picked, O'Keefe was ignored.
Again Doherty failed to make an impact as a Test bowler. By the end of the summer, O'Keefe was the leading Shield spinner again with 24 victims at 22.20. Ashton Agar took 19 at 28.42. When the Ashes tour came around …
Agar was picked, O'Keefe was ignored.
But after topping the Shield wicket list for all-comers last summer with 41 at 20.43, O'Keefe could not be ignored any longer. He came to the UAE and 1575 days after he was first called into a Test squad, made his debut in the baggy green. On the eve of his Test debut, he was asked how he thought he would get his first Test wicket.
"I think it'll be pretty similar to the way I get them all," he said. "Pitch outside off, they'll play for a bit of spin, it'll just skid on to about middle stump."
He was only half joking. When chosen for the tour, O'Keefe was described by national selector Rod Marsh as a man who relied on accuracy rather than much spin. An explicit comparison was made with Sri Lanka's Rangana Herath, another short left-armer who had recently taken 23 wickets against Pakistan in the space of two Tests.
But that was to underestimate Herath, whose mastery of flight and dip cannot be ignored. When he claimed 14 wickets in Colombo this year, he mixed up the straighter, skiddier balls with deliveries that turned sharply. The batsmen were unsure what was coming, whether it was turning and, notably, whether they could trust the length.
Herath deceived Asad Shafiq in both innings of that Test. In the first, he spun two balls sharply away and then squeezed a straighter one through to bowl him. In the second, he saw that Shafiq was using his feet and when he advanced one more time, got one to drop on him and turned it past the edge for a stumping. It was artful bowling.
Admittedly, Herath had more to work with on that Colombo pitch. In Dubai, O'Keefe was faced with a surface that offered a bit of first-innings turn, but more assistance for the right-armer Nathan Lyon, who could work into the footmarks created by Mitchell Johnson. Still, it didn't take O'Keefe long to learn that more is needed in Test cricket than accuracy; Doherty could have told him that.
Attacking the stumps, he was easily defended or worked to leg by the Pakistanis, who displayed the kind of patience that has not always been a hallmark of Pakistan batsmen. When O'Keefe did manage to impart a few more revolutions, he looked a little more dangerous. But a spinner can deceive a batsman out of the hand, in the air, or off the pitch, and there was still the issue of flight.
When he finally broke through in his 25th over it was not with the straighter one, as he predicted. Shafiq didn't get fully to the pitch of a ball that turned and his top edge flew high and fell into the hands of Mitchell Marsh running back at square leg. His second came with one that was a touch slower through the air and turned just enough to drag Yasir Shah wider of off.
Notably, neither of his wicket balls would have hit the stumps. Against a team full of right-handers - it was the first time Australia had played against 11 right-handed batsmen in a Test since they faced Bangladesh in Cairns in 2003 - a bowler who turned the ball away was key. Lyon was at times threatening out of the rough, but more often than not was comfortably negotiated.
O'Keefe finished his first innings as a Test bowler with 2 for 107 from 30 overs. He described his two days of toil in the Dubai sun as character-building. O'Keefe's record suggests he can succeed at this level, and he deserves more chances when conditions suit him. It will be instructive to see how he performs in the second innings here, if he can extract more turn.
But now, after four years of waiting, he has that baggy green at last. And he has learnt there is more to Test cricket than arm balls.

Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @brydoncoverdale