Former Test great Justin Langer claims Australia is justified in its reluctance to develop a 'mystery spinner' because he believes it is virtually impossible to perfect the doosra delivery using a legitimate bowling action.

Langer, who now coaches Western Australia and guided the Perth Scorchers to their first KFC T20 Big Bash League title earlier this year, watched with interest as spinners dominated the recent WorldT20 tournament in Bangladesh.

Discounting the teams that took part in pre-tournament qualifying (and therefore played more matches) the four leading wicket takers for the World T20 – Imran Tahir (South Africa), Samuel Badree (West Indies), Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra (India) - were spinners who boasted an array of variations.

Above all, it became clear that a key to success on slow, dry sub-continental pitches was to have at least one bowler in the attack capable of spinning the ball both ways with little discernible change in their actions.

In the wake of Australia's early exit from that event – the one major international cricket trophy that continues to elude them – debate has ensued as to why one of the world's foremost cricket nations has steadfastly refused to cultivate so-called 'mystery spinners'.

Langer believes the answer to that question is more ideological than technical.

"It's a bit like reverse swinging the ball. If you want to promote reverse swing of the ball, in most cases I think you'll find you probably have to bend the rules to get it to work," Langer told Cricket.com.au.

"There's no doubt that it's exciting when it happens, and it's the same when it comes to bowling the doosra.

"It's very, very difficult, as I understand from talking to biomechanists, to bowl that with a completely straight arm.

"Is it great to have one of those bowlers in your team? One hundred per cent. But do we want to promote it in Australia? I'm not so sure."

Ashwin finished the World T20 with 10 wickets and his doosra that bamboozled South Africa's Hashim Amla was acclaimed ball of the tournament and, indeed, the T20 version of Warne's 'Ball of the Century' by Langer's former Australian teammate and fellow Western Australian Adam Gilchrist. However, the India bowler admitted during the event that he had recently taken to wearing a long-sleeved shirt when bowling to give him greater flexibility with his action.

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"I just wanted to see if you can get more revs on the ball if you can do a little bit with your elbow, as much as that is," he said, hinting that the additional cover provided by the long-sleeved garment help make any straightening of the bowling arm more difficult to detect .

"You can get a lot of advantage with these things, so why should I lag behind if someone else is getting a competitive edge?"

But Langer believes the race to remain abreast of the innovators should not come at the expense of the letter of cricket's laws.

He points out that due to the vigilance of coaches and match officials throughout the ranks of Australian cricket, anyone progressing through the grades with a suspect bowling action will be identified and required to undergo remedial training.

Which means bowlers who exhibit the sorts of unorthodox actions that are usually required to bowl a successful doosra-style delivery are unlikely to make it through to first-class, let alone international competition.

And if the development of a 'mystery spinner' therefore meant that Australian cricket had to potentially "bend the rules" as well as the arm of the bowler(s) in question, then Langer believes the long-term cost outweighs any short-term, on-field gain.

"It's like any sort of leadership – you can go with the crowd and just follow what everyone else does or you can say no," he said.

"It's a bit like drugs in athletics. You can say, 'Well if some athletes do it then why don't we all do it?' Perhaps that's the way to go, because if everyone's on drugs it might be the best Olympics ever.

"So if we have everyone bending their arms and bowling doosras – awesome. But is that the best thing for cricket? I'm not sure that's the way to go.

"I don't know the answer to that – it's a philosophical question."

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But Langer was less equivocal about the reason why the highly fancied Australian men were unable to emulate the efforts of the Southern Stars and make it past the initial group stage of the World T20 tournament.

He claimed it was not the absence of a 'mystery spinner', nor are there glaring deficiencies in Australia's technical or strategic approach to 20-over cricket even though they have made the final of the biennial event just once – in 2010 when they lost to England.

Rather it was the Australians' long-standing struggle in sub-continental conditions that was to blame for their three consecutive losses that saw them out of the running for the trophy before the knock-out phase had even begun.

"I think if you look back at the history of Australian cricket we have to get better at playing in Asian conditions, it's as simple as that," Langer said.

"It's like India coming here – they struggle to play in Australia because they haven't been brought up on these sorts of pitches.

"The only solution is that we've got to give our players as much exposure to sub-continent conditions as we can because adjusting to them is really, really hard and it takes time to adapt.

"It's not an excuse, it is what it is. So did we have the best, most talented group of available players on the park in Bangladesh? Probably.

"Did we adapt as well as we could to those conditions? Probably not.

"It's just that other teams handled them better, and it was no surprise that it was sub-continent teams India and Sri Lanka that played off in the final."