Twenty-four hours after Cheteshwar Pujara hit the winning runs at Arun Jaitley Cricket Stadium, Australian coach Andrew McDonald was still processing the dramatic 8-28 collapse that effectively handed India the coveted Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Australia’s deflating loss in Delhi can be attributed to several factors, many of which are well-documented — the squad’s preparation was less than ideal, multiple players were unavailable due to injury, while India’s spinners are infamously difficult to tame in their own backyard.
But what made the defeat tough to stomach was the nature in which Australia imploded on day three. After two enthralling days of cricket at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Australia was in the superior position on Saturday evening — India’s bowlers were genuinely rattled, and one decent partnership the following morning would have been enough to set an imposing fourth-innings target.
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Therefore, the speed at which Australia’s hopes of victory vanished on Sunday morning was genuinely confronting. With the possible exception of Travis Head and Peter Handscomb, Australia’s batters weren’t foiled by unplayable deliveries, instead letting themselves down with laughable shot selection and sluggish footwork.
“I think it will take a little bit more than 24 hours to get your head around it, it happened awfully quick,” Australian coach Andrew McDonald told SEN on Monday.
“As happens in the subcontinent, you give an inch and they’ll take a mile. They got a little opening and they drove it to their advantage.”
McDonald confessed that Australia’s batters abandoned their plans in the second innings — strategies formulated before the match were forgotten, with a baffling reliance on cross-bat stroke play backfiring dramatically.
Steve Smith, Matthew Renshaw and Alex Carey each fell cheaply to the sweep shot, which can be an effective tool in the subcontinent — it negates the side spin that thwarted Australia during the series opener in Nagpur, where players were repeatedly beaten on the inside and outside edge.
But there’s a difference between attempting a sweep shot and executing it — all three of Carey’s stumps were visible when Ravindra Jadeja bowled him around his legs.
The Australians seemingly didn’t trust their forward defence, instead adopting an aggressive approach in the second innings, with mixed results — Travis Head’s belligerent 43 briefly put India on the backfoot, but there’s a fine line between bravery and recklessness.
“There’s going to be questions around some of our batters’ methods, there’s no doubt about that, we have got to find the balance between that aggressive play and also defence, and being able to rotate the strike,” McDonald told reporters in Delhi.
“Our methods are going to be critiqued, and rightfully so.
“There were some people who went clearly away from the game plan that made them successful over a period of time and that’s for us to own as a collective.
“We’ve got to be better than that, that’s the bottom line, we’ve got to own it and we are not here to shy away from the fact that wasn’t good enough.”
McDonald remains adamant the four-day training camp in Bangalore was adequate preparation ahead of the Test series, but fans are understandably questioning the team’s methods — from the outer, it looks as though they’re still searching for answers.
“I still wouldn’t have changed what we did leading in, there’s no doubt about that,” McDonald said.
“I think they had really good preparation in Bangalore, so there’s not any excuses.
“At the end of day two, if you said our preparation was good, you’d probably have a different slant on it, but within an hour then people start to critique what happened in the past.
“I don’t think that had a great bearing on what happened in that hour, we were prepared for that, and day three, as well as we could have been and we failed under the examination of India.”
Despite the 90 minutes of chaos on Sunday morning, Australia can take several positives out of the six-wicket defeat — the tourists batted commendably in the first innings, while their fielding also improved drastically from the series opener.
The Delhi Test was, for all intents and purposes, a step in the right direction, albeit with plenty of room for improvement, and the Aussies have nine days to regroup and reset before their next challenge in Indore.
To nobody’s surprise, the Indore wicket is predicted to turn. Cameron Green is expected to be available for the third Test, meaning there is a strong possibility Australia will again pick three strike spinners.
David Warner’s concussion scare and elbow fracture puts the veteran opener under a serious injury cloud ahead of the Indore Test, meaning Head is likely to retain his spot at the top of the order alongside Usman Khawaja.
Meanwhile, Australian captain Pat Cummins will fly home to Sydney for a couple of days due to a private family matter before returning to India ahead of the third Test, which gets underway on Wednesday, March 1.
There’s still plenty to play for in Indore and Ahmedabad — Australia’s No. 1 Test team ranking is on the line, while their place in the World Test Championship Final will be under threat if India secures a 4-0 whitewash.
“We feel as though we’re good enough to beat India in India,” McDonald declared.
“But at the moment I suppose everyone there is critiquing that we aren’t, and that’s fair enough based upon that one session.”