Tim Paine restored faith in his team's ability and said that hosts are unperturbed by the series scoreline wanting to keep the focus solely on winning the much-anticipated New Year's Test kickstarting Thursday, January 3.
India have taken a 2-1 lead in the four-match Test series and thus retained the ever special Border-Gavaskar Trophy. However, the No. 1 ranked Test side are yet to register its first ever series triumph down under.
The rampaging visitors need to ensure they don't lose in order to clinch a historic and forever memorable victory in Australia. The scenario is adding huge pressure on Paine's side to enforce a result their way. But one admirable wicketkeeper-batsman remains positive of a good showing.
"My focus has been on us improving and us playing the best possible cricket we can. We want to win every Test we play. At times it's not possible. We're playing the best Test team in the world at the moment who are playing really well," Paine was quoted saying in the pre-match press conference on the eve of the SCG Test.
"I haven't thought too much about losing the series, that's for sure...some guys will use different things to motivate them. My motivation is making sure we're improving, competitive at all times and put up a really good fight against India."
It is Australia's inexperienced batting line-up that was brutally exposed as they scored only 151 and 261 to end still 137 runs short in the Boxing Day Test. While none of his batter has yet scored a ton in the series, Paine reaffirmed that learnings have been taken from their mistakes.
"We are constantly a work in progress...as I said before, it is about trying to keep a bit of perspective, a reality about where we are at. I think we are showing signs of getting better," Paine said, "I think in the last Test while our batters didn't set the world on fire, most guys got a start and showed that they can succeed at this level. So in this Test, there is going to be a real focus from our batting group."
"We know we are not going to win too many Test matches without scoring hundreds and that's something that we have spoken about. It is something we are really keen to improve and address. The silver lining is that in a few Tests' time we have some world-class players available and we are going to have some younger guys with 8-10 Tests under their belt. So, it is going to be a great thing for Australian cricket," he signed off.
(Inputs from cricket.com.au)
