With Hughes - is it his technique or is he psyching himself out?
In addition to O'Keefe on that plane I want Matt Hayden sent over to teach these crackers how to sweep a spinner. None of them can do it. The article today about CA turning down Saqlain Mushtaq's offer of teaching our spinners the doosra just says everything that is wrong about CA at the moment. They did not take this team to India to win, they took the squad they wanted for the Ashes and said do your best boys.
Leaving O'Keefe out of this tour was outrageous. He has the best record of a spinner in four day cricket this year in Australia and was a clear second option behind Lyon.
I agree with your point regarding Hayden. Being able to sweep in India is crucial. You look at Hayden's 200 at Chennai and he must have scored half his runs or more from the sweep shot.
Recently, Alistair Cook dominated the England vs India series by playing the sweep beautifully. It is essential on Indian pitches, particularly if you're not willing to use your feet like Michael Clarke.
Australia has the reverse problem that India has touring anywhere else. Australian pitches generally aren't spin friendly so none of our batsmen face a lot of quality spin bowling on spin friendly pitches and as a result don't learn to sweep.
Hughes' problems would seem to be partly technique and partly mental. He kept getting instantly bogged down against the spinners. Excluding his second innings dismissal in the first test which would have got anyone out, he has prodded around against the spinners, the pressure has built and the bat has been surrounded by close in fielders until he eventually gets out.
I think he needs to lift his aggression a little bit. It is fairly clear that he isn't picking the ball out of the hand though. This is a problem for several of our batsmen though. Warner is very much the same. He plays back and really late and relies on watching the ball. This has been his downfall a couple of times because as soon as the ball stays low or something you get trapped in front LBW.