Under the leadership of Pat Cummins, the Australian team is facing the worst time in the longest format of cricket against the Indian team. Even in the dream, Kangaroos would not have thought that the team would have such a fate on Indian soil. The visiting team is trailing by 0-2 in the series and has already missed the chance to win the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Looking at the series performance, Former captain Michael Clarke believes that Australia’s poor performance on their tour of India so far has been riddled with ‘big mistakes’. Clarke feels that Australia’s biggest mistake was not playing a warm-up match before the four-Test series starting on 9th February.
Michael Clarke said on Monday’s Big Sports Breakfast, “I am not surprised by what I see because we did not participate in the practice match. Big, big, big mistake from the team management. There should have been at least one practice match to adjust to the conditions. The weaknesses of the Australian batsmen against top spin bowling were exposed in the first two Tests,” Clarke slammed the team management.
Clarke also criticised the batter of the Australian team over a sweep shot. In the Delhi Test, the visiting team’s batsmen tried to deal with the spinners by playing sweep, but this strategy failed miserably. Over half of the team went to the pavilion on the sweep shot in the second innings of the second test match.
“I’m not saying don’t sweep in India. I’m saying you sweep at the right time, at the right stage of your innings, on the right pitch and, generally, with the spin. It’s very hard to sweep against the spin when the ball is not bouncing. So, the basics of batting and facing spin bowling in those conditions are wrong. When you start your innings, they are not the right time to sweep. Half Australia’s batters were dismissed while sweeping or reverse sweeping on a low bouncy pitch.” Said the former Australian skipper.
In the second test match, Michale Clarke questioned Australia skipper Pat Cummins’s strategy. He added that Australian should have learned from India how to bat. But the way they have batter, it seems they are not seeing them. Clarke also raised questions on decorating the fielders of Pat Cummins on Sunday.
“Australia should have learned from India how to bat in spin-friendly conditions. It seems that we are not seeing India batting. We had 100 runs on the board. At one stage, Pat Cummins had four players on the boundary. You’re either bowling India out for under 100 or losing. If you lose in 20 overs or you lose in two days, it’s irrelevant. So fielders get up, bat-pad offside, bat-pad leg side, slip. If the ball turns, if the ball bounces, if the ball shoots along the ground, if you make an error in judgment, you are getting out. That’s what Australia had to do. We had mid-off back, mid-on back, deep point, deep square-leg — what was I watching?”
