Australia’s preparations to train the day after the Nagpur Test finished were delayed when the VCA Stadium grounds crew watered the center and practice pitches over the course of the night despite requests from the visitors to utilize the facilities on Sunday.
The Australian team management requested that the center wicket and practice fields be left up so the players may train on Sunday afternoon from the VCA grounds crew. On Saturday night, though, after the squad had left the stadium, the grounds crew was watering the center wicket.
Five members of the Australian team were supposed to go to the stadium on Sunday afternoon for an optional practice, but those plans were postponed because the practice fields had already been watered.
The VCA declined the Australian team’s request for comment, stating that both teams will train the following day.
Australia is trying to find a means to get back into the series, and the cancellation of training is a blow to them. Their hitters must figure out a way to deal with Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin, who scythed through the visitors in both innings to bowl them out for 177 and 91, respectively.
Following a number of players getting caught on the crease during the collapse of the second innings, head coach Andrew McDonald decided that Australia’s hitters needed to be more aggressive.
“We felt as though we probably weren’t as proactive as what we needed to be in the extreme conditions,”
McDonald said.
“In Galle last year we showed that in Test match one [against Sri Lanka] where we were really proactive. And in this instance, we probably weren’t and that showed up in the second innings.
“If you stand still and look to defend for long periods of time against that quality spin line-up you’ve got pretty much a ball with a number on it and unfortunately, we weren’t able to get into the method that we wanted to apply.
“We saw very little sweeping which is something that we valued leading in as well. So we’ll review why that was the case. And there’s no doubt that when you’re under extreme pressure like that, and you’re behind the game sometimes you narrow in and we need to be more expensive than that.
“I thought Steve Smith summed it up really well after he came off and said we’re going to have to be brave, take some risks, take the ball down the ground, push some fielders out and give ourselves the ability to rotate the strike. They were able to crowd us, swarm us and we weren’t able to push the fielders back.”
“You look at the way they played, they were able to push the fielders back, they took calculated risks. So you can always learn from the opposition, but you don’t want to be like them in the same instance as well. We’re going to have to do it slightly differently.”
Mitchell Swepson will be returning home to give birth to his first child, so Australia is also debating whether to make any changes for the second Test. Queensland left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann will be joining the team in Delhi for the second Test.
Mitchell Starc, who arrived in Delhi yesterday, is also most likely to be available. Although Cameron Green is attempting to play in the second Test, it may be a stretch as he is still recovering from a fractured finger and Josh Hazlewood is still unable to play because of an Achilles problem.
McDonald was cautious to modify everything after a setback, though.
“If you feel as though your preparation was good and the way you want to go about it is good then you re-commit to that,”
McDonald said.
“If you shift and try to change too much that’s when you get lost as a touring team. We’ve seen teams come to Australia and try to do the same. We need to be committed to what we want to achieve.
“Will there be changes? Potentially, we have Green and Starc back on the selection table so that will totally change the balance of how we want to go about things. However, we feel as though when we came here we had a clear vision of how to play, how we want to go about it and we need to reinvest into that.
“We feel as though it can work and the players within the changeroom are very capable for the challenges ahead. We had a slight setback in the first Test match, we got behind in the game. We clearly know where we need to improve. If we improve those areas the margins will narrow very quickly.”