Australia coach surprised by wicket on second day
The home team bowlers did not put a foot wrong but the pitch “surprisingly” dried up quite quickly on the second day, eventually helping the Indian batters, reckons Australia head coach Andrew McDonald. “The surface looked considerably dry today. It dried out fairly quickly,” said McDonald.
“We thought there may have been a little bit more there. So, I suppose if you want to say that we were a little bit surprised, yeah, there wasn’t as much seam movement or swing. The bowlers were presenting the seam in a similar fashion to what they did yesterday. So I think the conditions may have had some say in that,” he added.
McDonald does not think Australia are out of the game, pinning hopes on the nature of Test cricket that keeps both the teams in the hunt till the end. “You’ve got the driver’s seat at the moment, but that’s not to say that tomorrow can’t change very quickly. Test cricket ebbs and flows, we’ve all been a part of a game when you’ve been well ahead of the game and it can twist and turn, so we’ve got to get to work,” he said.
“It’s about 20 odd overs to the second new ball, we’ve got to work out a way to navigate through a few batters before that second new ball arrives and that could be our entry point back into the game.”