Kerry O'Keeffe worries "big-time" that Test selectors could be damaging the future of spin-bowling in Australia by repeatedly opting against picking front-line tweakers.
Australia went without a specialist spinner at the SCG for the first time in 138 years on Sunday, with Nathan Lyon's injury replacement Todd Murphy overlooked for the Ashes series finale.
The fact Murphy's wait to play a home Test will extend beyond Sydney is notable, given the debate at the SCG has traditionally been whether to play two spinners.
But in reality, the omission forms part of a nationwide question for Australia, who have opted against playing a tweaker in four of their past six Tests.
In contrast, between the start of April 2013 and the end of June 2025, Australia played a spinner in all of their 120 Tests bar one.
Former Test legspinner O'Keeffe, now a Fox Sports expert, said such selection decisions could ripple through the years and affect the next generation of players.
"I worry big-time about it," he said.
"There are thousands of ambitious young spinners out there that want to wear a baggy green and affect a Test match for Australia on the fourth and fifth day, and the selection ethos at the moment is, 'We don't need a spinner'."
Australia are in the midst of a pace-bowling golden age, but O'Keeffe said cricket history proved even the best sides cannot afford to focus only on the present.
The great West Indies teams of the 1970s and 1980s often picked an all-pace attack, but O'Keeffe said those tactics weren't without their problems.
"The writing's on the wall: if you shut down the opportunity for spinners, it has a flow-on effect," he said.
"Ever since Clive Lloyd and that (West Indies) team made it to go with a four-pronged pace attack, they won Test matches, but when it came time, we needed a spinner, there were none. I hope that Australia doesn't go down that line."
Across the board, spin has barely played a role for either Australia or England this summer.
Just nine wickets were taken by tweakers across the first four Tests of this Ashes series, and they contributed just 14.2 per cent of overs bowled.
Never has a five-Test Ashes series had fewer than 20 wickets taken by spin, while a 1980 showdown between England and West Indies is the only series with fewer than 10.
At the toss, captain Steve Smith said the pitches rolled out during the Ashes had left Australia with little option but to sideline Murphy in Melbourne and Sydney.
Australia's spin bowling coach Daniel Vettori rejected suggestion there would be no place for the next generation of spinners in the Test team.
"I don't see it that way, I think at some stage it'll get back to possibly how it was," he said at stumps.
"You see (spinners) when conditions suit; we go to Sri Lanka we play three, India two or three most of the time.
"There's a real carrot for spin bowlers that they can put their hand up and then be selected for series where it's incredibly important."
O'Keeffe said he felt for Murphy, who was overlooked so Australia could play two allrounders and three front-line quicks in Sydney.
"He'll be frustrated with that. Is it a misread of a pitch? We'll find out," he said.
The one unknown is whether Australia would have taken the same approach in Melbourne and Sydney had Lyon not torn his hamstring in Adelaide.
But even Australia's greatest offspinner is seeing less of the action when fit, having bowled the fewest overs of any home summer in his career last season.
