Arthur Crabtree wrote:There's reverse swing though. But with the no spit laws, plus close scrutiny, maybe that won't be a factor. But it usually is.
On the contrary, for the last 15 odd years one of the most common criticisms of the team from Aussie pundits has been their inability to reverse swing the ball when other teams have managed to, and also a lot of criticisms about how the batters respond to it (which I believe is very badly, mostly because they are never confronted with it until facing top class bowling - I remember reading for instance even in his batting zenith, Michael Clarke turned to jelly when reverse came into the game).
Around the mid 2010s, it was a constant thing used to bash the bowlers when Australia didnt do well. Tours like Pakistan in UAE (around 2015 or 2016 IIRC) where the Aussie bowlers got slaughtered for their inability to find reverse on flat pitches while the home team seamers did. Same with tours to India, Mitchell Johnson I think at one point spent months bowling with the SG ball to practice generating reverse swing, said in the press the SG ball just isnt made for it, then 20 overs into the first test Zaheer Khan had it reversing 3 meters in the air and much ridicule of Johnson followed.
And who can forget that series in South Africa where, hilariously in hindsight, Dave Warner came out to say that South Africa must be tampering the ball and cheating, because the Aussie got no reverse, but South Africa had it looping around like a paper bag in the wind.
Of course, you can take this anyway you want, but the criticisms peaked around that 2014-17 period... then Mitchell Starc and others suddenly started to find reverse to much fanfare. Then not long after they caught cheating. And then suddenly they stopped reversing it. Some coincidence that....I will go as far to say its almost certain Australia cheated for about 2 years before being caught. Not that I put much into that.... maybe their honesty in comparison to others is the reason why they cant reverse it (the art itself seems to be less prevalent as years, and scrutiny, goes on).
If you want the current take, Pat Cummins said before the India test that the Aussie's werent afraid of the Indian's reverse swing being a factor, because reverse swing is not an important part of the game in Australia, and the Aussie wont be trying specifically to do it.