“Getting India Cheaply…”: Australia Great On How Steve Smith’s Team Trumped Rohit Sharma & Co.

Former captain Ian Chappell believes dismissing India cheaply on the first morning of the third Test here was the key to Australia’s return to the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The Indian batsmen lacked application and were dismissed for 109 and 163 in the two innings of the match, which Australia won by nine wickets to seal their place in the World Test Championship final. Australia’s victory came after losing the first two Tests in Nagpur and Delhi within three days.

“It was important to get India out cheaply in the first innings. Once they (Australia) did that they gave themselves a decent lead. It wasn’t a huge lead but it was useful on this pitch. ” ESPNcricinfo quoted the great Chappell as saying.

“And then, chasing only a low score in the second innings, Australia lost early wickets and then Head, in particular, decided to attack in the second innings, only when Australia ran out of the game.

“So the key for me was to get India cheap in the first innings and it took a lot of courage to change things from what happened in the first two Tests,” he said.

Chappell said the visitors knew what they needed to do to turn things around on the tour, but the implementation fell short in the first two matches.

“Australia talked about what they had to do, talking about it is the easy part, doing it is the hard part and Australia did that in this Test match.”

Terming Travis Head’s non-selection for the first two Tests as ‘ridiculous’, the 79-year-old said there was finally a good understanding in the selection committee for the Australian tour.

“That was ridiculous non-selection, stupidity that was but at least the Australians have seen the error of their ways,” he concluded.

The fourth and last Test of the series will be played in Ahmedabad from March 9.

featured video of the day

India beat Australia by 6 wickets in second test, fans overwhelmed