Mumbai: Legendary Sachin Tendulkar has figured out that the deficiency of footwork by the Indian batsmen during the second innings of the Adelaide Test played a crucial role in them getting knocked over for the fifth-lowest total and their record lowest in Test history 36.
India was somewhat ahead of the game at the start of the third day of the pink-ball Test after having taken a 53-run lead following the completion of the first innings of both sides. But they misused all the advantage in a freaking first Test session of the third day as Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins produced a superb performance in seam bowling to bowl out the Virat Kohli-led team for 36.
Tendulkar identified that the Indian batsman showed a lot of flexibility in the first innings, but in the second innings, the batsman did not play or miss a lot of deliveries and as mentioned by him, it was largely because of the steadiness in allocating the length outside off-stump by the Australian bowlers but also due to the unenthusiastic step by the Indians.
“I thought in the first innings we batted well and showed a lot of resilience. In the second innings, there was not much playing and missing by our batsmen. The ball wasn’t moving around too much; just a little bit. Normally, when batters score runs we don’t look at other elements, like the number of times he was beaten etc..” Tendulkar told IANS.
“But we talk about a number of aspects when the batter has edged the ball. Off similar deliveries, when you are beaten and when you are scoring runs, nobody talks about those. One change that one can talk about was getting a nice, big stride forward, which I felt was missing. In foreign conditions, I feel with a good stride forward against fast bowlers becomes important,” he explained.
“A half-and-half defence (short stride) can always trouble you and if there’s a little more movement off the seam then your hands tend to compensate for the lack of footwork. What I also simultaneously noticed was that the Australians bowled very much on off stump much, much tighter and not outside the off stump whereas they bowled outside the off stump in the first innings,” he added.
Indian batsman will look to stage retrieval when they lock horns against the same bowling attack during the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground from December 26-30.
