Former Test captains Michael Clarke and Ian Chappell have savaged Australia’s team choice and techniques in a dismal defeat to India. The Australians tumbled to a six-wicket loss inside three days within the second Test in Delhi to path 0-2 within the four-Test collection.
Clarke and Chappell have added their voices to a refrain of criticism from previous greats together with Allan Border, blasting Australia for muddled team choice and bewildering techniques.
“I don’t think there was any justification for some of the things they’ve done; their selections smacked of panic,” Chappell informed Nine’s Wide World of Sports. “If you want to look at panic, the dropping of [Travis] Head, playing [Matt] Renshaw [in the first Test], saying he’s a good player of spin bowling – and you bat him in the middle order.
“You come into the second Test with one quick only, you fly [Matt] Kuhnemann over from Australia and you play him ahead of [Ashton] Agar who bowls the same sort of stuff and was in the original squad. Now, are you going to tell me they’re not panic selections? This is the problem … they overthink things.”
Clarke stated Australia’s issues may very well be traced to not taking part in a tour sport to acclimatise to Indian situations.
“Major, major, major mistake,” Clarke informed Big Sports Breakfast. “There should have been at least one game over there to get used to the conditions.”
Clarke slammed captain Pat Cummins for his techniques within the Delhi debacle as India chased 115 runs to win.
“I’m not sure what happened with our tactics,” Clarke stated. “At one stage, Patty Cummins had four blokes on the boundary. There’s two-and-a-half days left in the Test match; you’re either bowling India out for under 100 or you’re losing – one or the other.
“If you lose in 20 overs, or you lose in two days, it’s irrelevant. I know it’s only a tiny run lead but we had to still try and win the game – and we had mid-off back, mid-on back, deep point, deep square leg. What was I watching?”
Criticism was additionally levelled at Australia’s shot choice via their second innings collapse of 48-9, when a succession of batsmen fell trying sweeps.
“You’re playing for Australia. Surely, as a batsman playing at the highest level, you calculate that risk versus reward,” Clarke stated. “Against spin bowling on a pitch like that, you would say my ‘swim between the flags’ is play straight, hit with the spin.
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“It’s like we’re not watching India bat. Why would you not look at that example and go, ‘OK, these guys know the conditions so well and this is how they’re playing’. Why would we try and do something different when they have been so good?”
Border expressed his dismay on the vacationers’ collapse, saying he was “disappointed” and “shell-shocked” by the character of it.
“I’m angry about the way they went about it today,” he stated. “It was panicky, frenetic sort of batting … nobody got in there to stem the flow with some good defensive cricket. They were all just getting out playing sweep shot, reverse sweep to just about every ball. You can’t get away with that on that sort of track. You’ve got to have a method.”
Former opener Matthew Hayden, who starred throughout Australia’s 2001 tour of India, was additionally shocked by the rout.
“These are world-class players, and they’ve got everything to win and everything to lose in this session,” Hayden stated in commentary. “They did it so well last evening in those few overs. But what we’ve seen here is a disaster for Australia. They’ve gone way over the edge in terms of their aggressive play.”
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