Simpson to help Katich improve his tweakers

SYDNEY - After helping Simon Katich sharpen his batting skills for the last Ashes tour, former Australian captain and coach Bob Simpson can again be seen helping the left-handed batsmen improve his leg spin for this year’s series starting next month.

Katich, Marcus North and vice-captain Michael Clarke have all been told to work on their part-time spin for the Ashes.

In the past, skipper Ricky Ponting has been reluctant to use Katich, but after a couple of key cameos by the left-hander during the South African tour, Ponting has vowed to use him more often.

“I had a good session with Bob Simpson after that tour and he got me to look at a few things. I didn’t feel like the leggie was spinning so much in South Africa and I was a bit concerned about that,” Katich was quoted as saying by The Australian.

“Bob bowled leggies himself and he’s coached so long, and he worked on a few things with my action. I wouldn’t say I was ripping them now, but I was happy with the way they were coming out to our international players in the nets during the IPL and, hopefully, I can get them coming out all right in England as well,” he added.

“I did a heap of bowling over there during the five weeks,” Katich said. “I’m confident that once I get over to England and do a bit of bowling that I can take up from where I left off.”

Katich also has a wrong’un and it picked up a few tail-end wickets in the South African Test series.

“I’ve been working on it because that’s the ball that seems to come out all right over there, but my leggie was the ball that really needed some work,” he said.