Ravindra Jadeja’s absence from the T20 series was supposed to debilitate India however the hosts tracked down a capable replacement in “outstanding” Axar Patel, said Australia mentor Andrew McDonald.
Ravindra Jadeja’s absence from the T20 series was supposed to debilitate India however the hosts tracked down a capable replacement in “outstanding” Axar Patel, said Australia mentor Andrew McDonald.
Left-arm spinner Axar who was shoed in as a like-for-like replacement for the injured Jadeja, impressed everyone with his bowling, finishing as the leading wicket-taker in the three-match series.
“Axar, in particular, had an outstanding series. With Jaddu out everyone thought that it might become a bit of a weakness for India, but they’ve found another one again, which tends to happen,”
McDonald said at the post-match press conference after India clinched the series.
The Australian bowling attack, comprising the pace duo of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, was taken to the cleaners by the Indian batters.
Asked if it’s a concern heading to the World Cup, McDonald said:
“Across the series the run rate was high; it was entertaining cricket from the get-go. Bat dominated the ball, so there was no place to hide for bowling units, in particular death.
“We worked our way through some plans. We saw some good results with some of the plans that we implemented that might be able to transition to the World Cup.”
McDonald revealed that Australia will have to supplement in the form of Mitchell Starc when they start the defense of their World Cup title at home next month.
“The connection between here (India) and Australia might be slightly different, a little bit more bounce, different tactics. Mitchell Starc comes back into the picture being one of our best death bowlers. So, we feel like we’ll get reinforcements there.”
McDonald feels most of the bowling attack is “under the pump” due to the skills of the batters.
“The conversations always going to be can you get better at your death bowling? The answer to that is yes.
“We encourage our guys to make good decisions and execute them. Sometimes the batter out-executes you and we’ve seen that with Hardik (Pandya) across the series.
“Suryakumar Yadav was outstanding today and he’s gonna be dangerous in the World Cup but he showed what he can do.”
“It’s fortuitous that some of the guys got the opportunity here. We got a couple of injuries which are concerning leading into a World Cup. You don’t like to see some of your mainstay players out of the team leading in but we feel as though we’ve got some good options in depth.” In the absence of David Warner, who was rested, Cameron Green “embraced the challenge of opening”.
The all-rounder scored 118 runs, including two aggressive half-centuries to give Australia a great start.
“I’ve asked him to show great intent on top of the order and everything that we’re seeing so far shows that he’s doing that.
“It’s probably opportunistic the way that he’s come into the opening position with obviously David Warner not being here and a couple of other players from our World Cup 15.
“And that’s all you can do, given an opportunity… Before we came over here we thought he had the skill sets to be able to succeed there, and he’s taken on some of the best bowlers in world cricket.”