Australia may have suffered a defeat in Perth but that was no reason to hit the panic button just yet, according to seamer Scott Boland, who is likely to step into the playing XI for the second Test following a side injury to Josh Hazlewood. Boland also said that the hosts simply had to tweak their plans a little bit for the second Test as well.

“There’s definitely not panic stations in our change rooms,” Boland said on Saturday (November 30). “There’s obviously going to be some chats around individual performances and everyone wants to perform really well every game they play. But yeah, it’s like, we’ve lost one game. It’s not toys out of the cot, I don’t think.”

“We’ve spoken as a team about our plans for all the different Indian batters. I won’t tell you those, but we’ve got pretty set plans. They might have a little bit of a tweak after the guys have seen them again from Perth, because obviously [Yashasvi] Jaiswal batted really well there. KL Rahul batted well in the second dig as well and really dug in. So we’ll probably have a chat over the next week and our plans might slightly change, but I’m pretty confident what we did in the first game was good,” he added.

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Scott Boland, who thought the opportunity to play another Test had “passed”, wants to make a mark in Adelaide after having sorted out a couple of niggles in the off-season as well.

“Obviously I haven’t played a heap of cricket in the start of this season, but I feel like I’ve played enough cricket to feel like I’m in a really good spot,” he said. “My body’s feeling really good now. I had a couple of niggles that were a little bit sore, but knee and foot are feeling really good and I’m confident how the ball’s coming out.”

He again shared, “Our last net session in Perth was for me and Josh Inglis, we went pink ball for quite a few overs. So getting it in the hand then and then obviously the overs we can get in probably tomorrow by the look of this weather will be valuable as well. Then Adelaide on Monday, then just a normal prep before a game. So have a good bowl two days before the game and then just prepare to play.”

Boland, who played a key role in Australia’s WTC Final win against India at The Oval last year, hasn’t featured in the XI since the Leeds Ashes Test in that same summer as well. Despite averaging 20.34 from 10 Tests so far, Boland is mindful of playing alongside Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon and Hazlewood.

“Obviously those guys have been so resilient, they don’t miss too many and no one must give up their spot at any stage,” Boland said. “And they’re so dominant, so last summer they weren’t bowling a heap of overs, but we’re still able to win most of those games. So yeah, I probably thought maybe the opportunity had passed, but I’ve worked really hard in the off-season to get my body in a spot where I’m confident that if I get another chance I’ll be able to perform it for Australia again.”

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“Usually there can be two different games in the one game,” he said. “You can bowl during the day when the sun’s out and it doesn’t do a whole lot, and then you get to the night session and the ball starts moving around a bit. So I think it’s just for the bowlers, we just communicate really well together about what the ball is doing and how the pitch is playing and then just sort of flicking between those modes as quick as you can.”

“I feel like the teams that bat first can sort of time when they want to bowl, if they bat really well on their first day, because if you get a newish ball at night, it can be pretty lethal. If batters are coming in, they’ve batted through the daytime, they get through to the night session. I think it’s been a couple of instances where the ball hasn’t dominated the bat. I think maybe last year at the Gabba we took the new ball and didn’t get as many wickets as what we would have hoped in that night session. But now back to Adelaide, I think they produce a really good cricket wicket that really suits the pink ball and helps it last a bit longer because it does get a little bit softer after 30, 40 overs compared to a red ball,” he concluded.

However, Australia have not lost a pink-ball Test in Adelaide yet. The second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series will start on December 6.