Sometimes I get sick of staff writers and sports journos (with no significant coaching or playing background) always trying to  manufacture  articles about  nothing. They have no analytical ability because they are devoid of specific knowledge applicable to the sports they write about.

On the TV it showed visiting top line spinners records in Australia.  Abdul Qadir, Saqlain Mushtaq, Mushtaq Ahmad,  Danie Vettori,  Anil Kumble and Graham Swann have failed to impress with awful figures. Unfortunately, our wickets are not conducive  to spin.

 I'm not sure where Harbajhan Singh stands?

From seeing O'Keefe bowl on wickets overseas he has been worse than Lyon.

About time! There are large number of slow bowlers in Australia who can spin the ball on batting paradises like the G in this Test. It's time to say good bye to Lyon and develop a young bowler who can play in all conditions and isn't afraid to slow the ball down and get it above eye level. Lyon will be fodder in India, so now's the time to give a real spinner a chance to feel part of the setup.

We need both of them on the sub-continent
If they pull off a miracle win here they should play 2 spinners in sydney

The big problem in Australia is that spinning pitches are rare.

That so many world class foreign spinners have struggled in Australia indicates that our pitches need to change to encourage spinners.

Lyon has surely kept his place with his 3 wickets so far today.

O'Keefe deserves to come in and play in Sydney as the second spinner if the pitch looks to favour spin.

Talk that Agar might make the squad on the back of taking 10 wickets in a Shield match against NSW

Nathan lyon has an average of about 30 away from home

If he can get that below 30 that would be invaluable

it is difficult to win test matches unless your bowling team averages under 30 as a unit. Its ok for one to be above 30

the reason is that 600 runs per test is a par score. 600 runs divided by 20 wickets is 30. So to get a team below par you need a bowling unit averaging below 30

In batting you have to take into account declarations, not outs etc. But roughly speaking to get the magic 600 runs a test you probably need your batting line up to average about 320 - so 40 for each of the first 7 and 40 combined for the final four

this of course is to be an average team. If you wish to be dominant you have to do better
Also to be competitive overseas you probably want your team to be stronger again since players typically average about 10 lower than their shield when playing away from home. To dominate overseas we probably need 3 outstanding batsmen averaging over 50 and a bunch of other strong players averaging over 40.