NEWS
Follow UsIndia’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate admitted that the Men in Blue are “slightly behind” in the second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Adelaide but made it clear that there’s no chance they will be surrendering their weapons.
India won the toss and opted to bat first in the pink ball Test against Australia. Yashasvi Jaiswal got out for a golden duck but KL Rahul and Shubman Gill put on 69 runs for the second wicket to put India in a good position. Mitchell Starc, however, sent Rahul back and India ended up losing three wickets in no time.
Nitish Reddy (54-ball 42) did play an exciting innings down the order but Starc’s six-wicket haul helped Australia dismiss India for 180. In reply, Australia were 86/1 at the end of day, trailing by only 94 runs with nine wickets in hand.
“I know that the scores look like there is a big gap between the two teams but we still feel we are in the game and with a few tweaks tomorrow (Saturday), we can get back in the game," said ten Doeschate.
“This team doesn’t need the coaches to go into the dressing room and say we need to fight. The guys understand that implicitly and it’s obviously a very proud team who wants to come here and do well.
“We feel slightly behind the game now but there certainly won’t be any letting up and certainly won’t be any surrendering. There certainly is a little bit of swing and a little bit of seam still there. So we’re pretty confident we can still turn it around.
“At Perth, we got bowled out for 150 and still we got back into that game. This is a proud team and the players want to come here and do well. We may be slightly behind in the game now but there certainly won’t be any surrendering."
Talking about the nature of pink ball Tests, ten Doeschate added: If you’re going to bring the pink ball into it, it’s obviously great for the crowds. It’s a little bit different for the players and we try to use the week as best we can to help them to adapt to the small differences.
“I don’t think there are huge differences and I certainly don’t think there’s anything to read into about how the guys performed today. Things happen in clumps, we lost wickets in clumps, which we wanted to avoid. I also thought that Mitchell’s (Starc) stock ball was very good and there are lessons to be learnt from that first innings. We will look at how we can play better in the second innings."
Ten Doeschate also heaped heavy praise on Reddy, who now has scores of 41, 38* and 42 in the three innings in Australia. "We're so chuffed with him. From the prep week in Perth where he looked like he still needed to figure things out, the way he worked in Perth, and the game plans he implemented in Perth to get crucial runs there, I think getting us to 150 in that first game was amazing. Just the way he went about his work. He is obviously playing his first pink-ball game.
"There's a little bit of work to do. He's very raw, but for a young kid, a 21-year-old to come out like that and play three innings of the quality he has. Being backed to bat at No.7 in the batting order. There's obviously a chat around about Washi not playing, but he's done everything a young player could do in a very short space of time and we think he's got a very high ceiling.”
The assistant coach said India will try to go as hard as possible in the first session of day two and try to get back into the game. “I think we’ll go as hard as we can in the morning but be slightly conscious of what the rest of the day looks like and what we need to do to get back into the game."
If you’ve not downloaded the Cricket.com app yet, you’re missing out on our content — big time. Download the App here.
