EX- Indian captain rips apart Australian team with ‘massive statement’ after poor show in Test series against IND

Australia didn’t have a great outing on the Indian tour till now. The World’s number one Test team didn’t justify their ranking in the first two Tests so far. Australian batters completely surrendered in front of the Indian spinner in both matches. Former Indian skipper Dilip Vengsarkar has come as another critic of the Pat Cummins’ side for their poor performance in Tests.

Australia were bowled out for 177 and 91 in their both innings in Nagpur Test. India posted 400 in their first innings and didn’t need to bat again as they won the match an inning 132 runs. In Delhi, Australia managed to take a 1-run lead against the hosts in the first innings. But the Australian batter again had no answers to the Indian spin duo Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. Australia got bowled out for 113 losing the last 9 wickets for 48 runs. Indian chased the winning total losing 4 wickets.

“The unfortunate part is, batting against spinners is an art, and Australians are not used to playing good quality spin. Sweep could be an important part of your game plan but also the margin of error is very small. It is tough to have control over sweep, like the hook shot off pacers. Shockingly the foot work has been poor. The skill level is not there. I don’t see a lot of them stepping out and driving,” said Vengsarkar as quoted in Hindustan Times.

‘They want to reverse sweep these days’ – Vengsarkar

In the second Test, most of the Australian batters were dismissed trying to play sweep shots. The visitors attempted 20 sweeps and reverse sweeps but ended up either getting bowled or LBW. “They want to reverse sweep these days. Sometimes you have to grind for runs, that aspect of batting you don’t see that much. DRS has also made it tougher for the batters. They are given out lbw even with a full stride on. Everyone wants to play with the ball all the time (and not use the pad),” Vengsarkar said.

India are already 2-0 up in the series and they retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the fourth consecutive time. Jadeja has been the player of the match in both wins. The 34-year-old has scalped 18 wickets in the series so far including career-best figures of 7/42 in the third innings of the Delhi Test. Meanwhile, his spin mate Ashwin has taken 14 wickets including a fifer in the third innings in Nagpur. The spin duo has together scalped a total of 32 wickets in the series so far.