Team India retained the Border Gavaskar Trophy in a fabulous fashion after annihilating the Aussies in the second Test of the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy. After the hosts won the opening Test in Nagpur quite comfortably, a similar display was seen to be repeated in Delhi as well. After Australia fought back in the first innings, the visiting team feel like a house of cards against the Indian bowling attack in the second innings and lost the game.
Former Australia skipper Michael Clarke recently came forward to talk about the mistakes made by Australia that led to them losing the two matches. Clarke also opined that the decision not to play any tour games ahead of the Border Gavaskar trophy hurt the Aussies as they did not get enough time to prepare themselves for the conditions.
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During a chat on the Big Sports Breakfast podcast, Michael Clarke said, “I’m not surprised by what I’m seeing because we didn’t have a tour game. Major, major, major mistake. There should have been at least one game over there to get used to the conditions. Selection for the first Test, major, major mistake.”
He further added, “Second Test, blokes sweeping, we saw enough of that the first Test match. They’re not the right conditions to sweep when you start your innings. And they’re never going to be the right conditions to reverse sweep against the spin at the start of your innings.”
Australia got off to a decent start in the second Test, thanks to the knocks of Usman Khawaja and Peter Handscomb, and was able to notch up 263 runs on the scoreboard in the first innings. It was the second innings where things went badly for the visitors, as they only managed 113 runs in the second innings.
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The Indian team chased the target with six wickets in hand, which led to Clarke questioning the field placement put in by Pat Cummins.
Explaining the same, Michael Clarke said, “I’m not sure what happened with our tactics. We had just 100 runs on the board. At one stage, Patty Cummins had four blokes on the boundary. There’s 2½ days left in the Test match. You’re either bowling India out for under a hundred or you’re losing: one or the other.”