After losing first ever home Test series against Indian cricket team, the Australian Test captain Tim Paine feels disappointed but also credited the Indian cricketers for their special historic achievement.
In the four-match home Test series, Australia lost by 2-1. India won the first Test of the series at Adelaide by 31 runs while the hosts levelled the series after winning the second Test by 146 runs at the new Perth stadium (Optus Stadium). India regained the lead of the series after winning the previous Test at Melbourne by 137 runs. The final Test of the series was hugely interrupted in rain and ended with a draw result.
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After the end of the series, Australian skipper has felt disappointed as they started the series to win it, despite missing some crucial regular cricketers. However, he praised the Indian cricketers as he claimed that India’s best players stood up in the big moments.
Paine said, “We’re really disappointed. We know we had some guys missing but we honestly felt coming into this series that in Australia, we could beat India. But throughout the series, more often than not when those big moments came up, Virat (Kohli) scored a century or (Cheteshwar) Pujara scored one, or (Jasprit) Bumrah bowled a great spell and got them through those moments.
“Their best players stood up in the big moments.”
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Australia’s next big Test assignment will be The Ashes 2019 that will begin after the completion of 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup in England and Wales.
Talking about their plans to handle that big situation, Paine said, “We’ll have conversations in the next day or two”.
However, Paine has enough faith in the present cricketers as he claimed that most of the inexperienced players are learning from this tough situation.
Paine added, “I have faith that the guys we have around the team are the right guys — (we) just have to keep putting some faith and trust in them. They are learning on the job a bit, but I think we’ll get there.
“We can’t help that we haven’t got Mike Husseys or Michael Bevans. We’ve got what we’ve got and the playing group is trying as hard as we can to get better.”
Also read: Virat Kohli Credits Team Effort To Win The Historic Test Series In Australia
Paine strongly feels that they could win the series if they utilised their a number of opportunities but the visiting side outplayed them.
The Aussie skipper said, “We honestly feel that we let that Test match slip. We thought we had a number of opportunities in that Test to get ahead of the game, and when those key moments came up, India outplayed us. We can learn a lot from the way they went about it, and we’ll make sure we do.”
