Ravindra Jadeja’s absence from the T20 series was expected to weaken India, but the hosts found a capable replacement in the “outstanding” Axar Patel, Australian coach Andrew McDonald said. Left arm spinner Axar, who was brought 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-game streak. “Axar in particular had an excellent run. Now that Jaddu was gone, everyone thought it might become a bit of a weakness for India, but they’ve found another one, which tends to happen,” McDonald said after the match . press conference after India picked up the series.
The Australian bowling attack, made up of tempo duo Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, was taken to the cleaners by the Indian batters.
Asked if it’s a problem heading into the World Cup, McDonald said: “Over the whole series the run rate was high, it was entertaining cricket from the start. Bat dominated the ball so there really wasn’t a place to put you hide from bowling units, especially death.
“We’ve worked our way through some of the plans. We’ve seen good results with some of the plans we’ve implemented that could potentially move into the World Cup.” McDonald added that Australia will have reinforcements in the form of Mitchell Starc when they start defending their World Cup title at home next month.
“The connection between here (India) and Australia might be slightly different, a little bit more resilience, different tactics. Mitchell Starc is coming back into the picture as one of our best death bowlers. So we feel like we’re going to get reinforcements there.” McDonald believes that most of the bowling offense is “under the pump” because of the batters’ skills.
“The conversations will always 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 outsmarts you and we’ve seen that with Hardik (Pandya) in the series.
“Suryakumar Yadav was excellent today and he will be dangerous in the World Cup, but he has shown what he can do.” Australia was without some of their World Cup-bound players due to injuries, but the head coach believes the defending champion has enough depth to overcome the situation.
“It just so happens that some guys have had the opportunity here. We have a few injuries related to leading to a World Cup. You don’t like to see some of your key players from the team leading the way, but we feel though we have some good options in depth.” In the absence of David Warner, who was rested, Cameron Green “accepted the challenge of the opening”.
The all-rounder amassed 118 runs, including two combative half-centuries, to get Australia off to a great start.
“I’ve asked him to show great intention in addition to the order and everything we’ve seen so far shows that he does that.
“It’s probably opportunistic how he got into the opening position with obviously David Warner not there and a few other players from our World Cup 15.
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“And that’s all you can do, if you get the chance… Before coming here we thought he had the skills to succeed there, and he’s hired some of the best bowlers in the world of cricket .”
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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