India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate feels that the Rohit Sharma-led side is still “in the game” and can get the upper hand on Australia on day two of the ongoing pink-ball Test in Adelaide “with a few tweaks”.
Notably, Australia finished strongly at stumps on day 1 (December 6) with the bat after their bowling attack bundled India out for just 180. Nathan McSweeney (38* off 97 balls) and Marnus Labuschagne (20* off 67 balls) are still in the middle and Australia are 94 runs behind India’s total and have nine wickets in hand.
“I know that the scores look like there is a big gap between the two teams but we still feel we are in the game and with a few tweaks tomorrow, we can get back in the game,” Doeschate said during the post-day press conference.
Doeschate also heaped praise on emerging allrounder Nitish Reddy after the latter played a very calculated knock to take India to 180.
“We’re so chuffed with him,” India’s assistant coach said. “I think getting us to 150 in that first game was amazing. Just the way he went about his work. He is obviously playing his first pink-ball game. There’s a little bit of work to do. He’s very raw… He’s done everything a young player could do in a very short space of time and we think he’s got a very high ceiling.
Ten Doeschate also revealed the team management’s thought process on picking Ravichandran Ashwin over Washington Sundar for the pink-ball contest.
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“I guess going into the last Test, we wanted to strengthen the batting and given what we saw of Nitish in the first Test, we kind of thought we could go with what we perceived to be the guys bowling the best spin at the moment, and we feel Ash (Ashwin) is more likely to get wickets on these conditions,” he said on Ashwin replacing Washington Sundar in the XI.
On the other hand, Australia’s speedster Mitchell Starc seemed chuffed with the way Nathan McSweeney and Labuschagne batted during the challenging twilight period.
“It’s a good way to finish the day,” Starc said. “A good day all out. But inarguably, the hardest time to bat is that third session with the brand new pink ball. So, to finish the day one down, particularly from Marn (Labuschagne) and McSweeney, to fight through sustained pressure from a quality bowling attack and to come out the other end. We have a chance to go on tomorrow, it was fantastic from them. Obviously, a fair bit of outside noise. Very pleased for them.”
