Australia captain Pat Cummins has admitted that his team’s batsmen went above and beyond the call of duty during their second innings, resulting in a catastrophic batting collapse that cost them the second Test in less than a day. The opening session was controlled by India’s spinner, who dismissed Australia for 113. With six wickets in hand, the hosts successfully completed the chase.
Pat Cummins__.destroying Australia’s love of cricket____
one interview at a time.pic.twitter.com/nJDx7Ez4fg
— Damo (@17magpie) February 17, 2023
After bowlers skittled out visitors for 113, Rohit Sharma, Srikar Bharat and Cheteshwar Pujara held their ground to help India register an emphatic 6-wicket victory against Australia in the second Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy here at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Sunday. After the Nagpur loss, Cummins urged his batters to be courageous and proactive, but he later acknowledged that his team may have taken things too far the other way in Delhi. Six of the dismissals came during frantic 90-minute periods against Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin, who shared all 10 of the innings’ wickets between them.
“Nagpur maybe [we] underplayed it, we probably overplayed it here at times in the second innings. You’ve got to find a way to try and put pressure back on the bowlers. They’re really, really good bowlers, especially in these conditions. Probably just at times maybe just overplayed it,” Cummins said in a post-match conference.
“I thought they bowled really well. It’s not easy out there. But perhaps some guys went away from their methods. 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.
For Australia’s batsmen in particular, there will be a lot of introspection, according to Cummins. Yet the team may potentially undergo some adjustments. As many as six Australian batters fell while sweeping or reverse-sweeping in the innings.
“We’ve got a bit of time. We’ll have a good think. Have a look at different things. I think over the next day or two we’ll look at any changes in the squad as well. Mitchell Swepson has gone home, he’s a chance of coming back. Hopefully Cam Green is available, [Josh] Hazlewood, [Mitchell] Starc, we’ll manage that,” Cummins said. “We’ll assess it over the next couple of days. [We’ve] probably got enough time to have a bit of a break, a bit of a refresh, and still plenty of time to roll up the sleeves before the next one,” he added.
