“We learnt a lot from that loss”, Kohli said. The same thing’s going to happen here. But at the end of the day, we’ve just got to go out there and adapt to the conditions.
Advertisement
On conducive wickets, we dictate terms to the opposition and this time in Pune, it was the other way round as we succumbed to spin in almost four sessions and within 74 overs. If it wasn’t for Steven Smith’s century in the 2nd innings and the number of opportunities he got, Australia could have been in a spot of bother.
Kohli would certainly like to win the toss as it was one of the crucial factors in Pune. India should know that to compete with a top quality worldwide side like Australia on even keel, you have to put your best foot forward, in all aspects of the game.
The Australians have already spoken about Mitchell Starc and how he is their main weapon but Kohli refused to give any importance to it and added, “I don’t think there will be any extra sort of variation added to his bowling suddenly”. And that’s the point: India are not used to being in this predicament playing at home.
The 32-year-old also backed the bowlers for restricting Australia to 260 in the first innings. You have to realise that ups and downs are a part and parcel of competitive sport and this was a one-off failure and I don’t think there is any reason to fret about it.
The team composition could also be tweaked a bit.
INDIA SQUAD: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Abhinav Mukund, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Karun Nair, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav.
While O’Keefe and Smith masterminded Australia’s victory the No.1-ranked Indian side are expected to come back hard starting on Saturday in Bangalore. They were unbeaten in 19 Tests, and while the average fan would have liked to see them extend that run, different members of the team have admitted it isn’t an easy feat doing so, despite playing in familiar conditions at home. The second Test starts here at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, March 4.
This Australian team needs to dream big.
Smith, himself was pivotal in his team’s win in Pune, scoring a hundred in the second innings, and he will expect others to join the party.
Australia: Matt Renshaw, David Warner, Shaun Marsh, Steve Smith (captain), Peter Handscomb, Mitchell Marsh, Matthew Wade (wk), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Steve O’Keefe, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Swepson, Usman Khawaja, Jackson Bird, Ashton Agar.
Advertisement
Pune harked back to the 2015-16 series against South Africa, particularly the Tests in Mohali and Nagpur where India posted totals of 201, 200, 215 and 173 and benefitted perhaps more than they might want to acknowledge from winning the toss.
