Stars set minds to spin for Sri Lanka success

The Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars are hoping an eight-day spin intensive in Brisbane will give them a big advantage when they tour Sri Lanka later this year.

The Australian squad will spend the next week focusing on all things tweak at the Bupa National Cricket Centre in Brisbane.

Batters and bowlers alike will be put through their paces on both the unique hybrid wicket and the new red soil-based pitch that imitates subcontinental conditions at CA's Brisbane headquarters.

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With the tour of Sri Lanka in September a key one in the battle for the Women’s One-Day Championship, Southern Stars coach Matthew Mott is determined to iron out any issues his squad has with the turning ball.

"A big focus for us is our cricket on the subcontinent. We’ve just been there (for the World T20) and across the board for Australian cricket it’s an area we need to get better at," Mott told cricket.com.au.

"We have to develop our spinners, so there’ll be a big focus on that, as well as with our batters.

"We’ll also do a lot of focus on game-based scenarios.

"We have amazing facilities here in Brisbane and to give players experience on different wickets in Australia and to be able to hit outdoors at this time of year, it’s really exciting."

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Australia’s last subcontinent excursion was the Women’s World T20 in India earlier this year, an experience skipper Meg Lanning said highlighted areas for the squad needed to work on.

"The World T20 certainly showed a few thing we all need to work on and me individually,” Lanning told cricket.com.au.

"There’s been a huge focus on spin for us over the last few years and that will certainly continue as well, so we’ll be doing fair bit of work on spin, facing spin bowlers and working out different scoring areas."

Spinning allrounder Jess Jonassen echoed her sentiments.

"I think spinners always look forward to the subcontinent, but we faced a few challenges in India recently and I think Sri Lanka play quite similar to that.

"I think a few of us are looking forward to rectifying any errors we may have made over in India."

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Allrounder Grace Harris is one of several players with relatively recent experience in Sri Lanka, having travelled to the island nation with an Australia A also featuring Lauren Cheatle and Beth Mooney last year.

"I’ve had success in Sri Lanka with my bowling, not so much with my batting," Harris told cricket.com.au.

"But I think it’ll definitely be challenging, their girls are different types of spinners with different actions and run ups, so you really have to watch ball hard when they’re batting.

"But from a bowling point of view, I’m just going to try to cash in on the spinning wickets."