NEW DELHI: Australia fought back strongly to win Game 3 on a pitch in Indore that offered vicious spins and variable bounce after hammering in the first two Tests of India’s Border Gavaskar Trophy within three days had been.
And Australia head coach Andrew McDonald said they were trying to achieve what they originally set out to do at Indore after admitting that visiting teams need to be “nearly perfect” to challenge India in their own backyard.
“You have to be almost perfect in India vs India. I think that game (Indore Test) was almost perfect except 6v11 was almost perfect,” McDonald was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
According to McDonald, the team’s success at the Indore Test has shown that there is a core group of players who can learn what it takes to win on the subcontinent and help the side to be even more successful in the future.
“Everyone’s journey starts somewhere on the subcontinent and I think there’s a core group of players who will come back here more experienced and theoretically better equipped for the challenges.
“We’re talking about a series where we’ve had certain conditions that probably can’t be associated with any other subcontinent tour over time, so it’s always a different challenge when you get here.”
He said Australia lost a chance to keep the trophy over an hour of chaos in the second test in Delhi.
However, on a pitch rated “poor” by the ICC, the visitors rode star-off spinner Nathan Lyon’s 11-wicket matchhol to humiliate the visitors by nine wickets and earn their spot in the World Test Championship (WTC) finals. to confirm.
“We were a bit lucky. Marnus (Labuschagne) was knocked out by a no-ball, how critical was that at the time, (and) that allowed a partnership to thrive. We also took our chances.
“Usman’s (Khawaja) flying catch and then Smudge (Smith Smith) turning back the clock with the leg slip. They compare that to the Delhi game where Smudge dropped one on the first slip and then we dropped one on the leg slip in Matthew Renshaw and they were critical.
“We had chaos there for an hour and that cost us the test match when we had played pretty good cricket. We came here and doubled what we set out to do at the start of the tour,” McDonald said.
(With PTI inputs)
