Australia suffered a heartbreaking six-wicket defeat at the hands of India in the second Test in Delhi on Sunday (February 19).
At the close of play on Day 2, the visitors were in the driver’s seat with a second-innings score of 61/1 and an overall lead of 62 runs. However, Ravindra Jadeja spun a web around Australia with the ball in the first session on the third day, returning with a seven-wicket haul to bundle out the tourists for a paltry 113.
The hosts then chased down the 115-run target to retain the Border Gavaskar Trophy for fourth straight time.
After the game, Australia skipper Pat Cummins said not every batter is comfortable playing a high-percentage risk shot like sweep and reverse sweep and that's where some of his teammates perhaps went out of their methods.
“I thought they (India) bowled really well. It's not easy out there, but perhaps some guys went away from their methods,” Cummins said in the post-match press conference.
“Each batter has their own way to go about it. I don't think there's any one size fits all rule. Unfortunately, quite a few of us got out with kind of cross batted shots which might not be our preferred method,” he added.
According to Cummins, the two aspects of batting – tempo and method – need to be balanced.
“Two big things we talk about is the tempo of the game and the method. Maybe at times, we were a little bit too high on tempo,” he stated.
“I would rather be high tempo than low tempo though. To be honest, those wickets were being difficult but maybe the method went a little bit away from what we planned to do at times.”
Cummins acknowledged that batting first was a good opportunity to score 300 plus, which could’ve put them ahead of the game.
"Looking back on it, 300 would have been fantastic. 260 was ‘ok' but if we really want to drive home the advantage we were a few short.”
Just like the Nagpur Test where Australia lost all 10 wickets in a session, they lost nine in just about 90 odd minutes in the morning session on Day 3.
“It's disappointing, this game was a similar story to Nagpur second innings. Felt like we were in a really good position for most of it, probably a few runs short in the end.
“In Nagpur maybe we underplayed. We probably overplayed it here at times in the second innings. You have got to find a way to try and put pressure back on the bowlers.
“They are really, really good bowlers, especially in these conditions.”
With this win, India took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four-match Test series and one more victory will propel the Rohit Sharma-led side to the ICC World Test Championship final.
The third Test is slated to be held in Indore from March 1.
(With PTI Inputs)
