The Indian team had a field day against Australia A on Saturday, Day 2 of the pink ball practice match. India finished the day at 386/4, with a 472 run lead and dominated Australia A with Hanuma Vihari and Rishabh Pant scoring centuries and providing a case for their selection in India’s game XI for the first Test against Australia from Thursday.
But while the batting display injected a lot of confidence into the Indian players, the poor performance of the Australian Athletics left Allan Border upset. Border, a former captain of Australia, was quite upset watching Australia A bowl, calling the performance a disgrace.
“One of the worst lethargic performances I have seen in the last session of any cricket,” Border said on Fox Cricket before game day three.
“This is Australia A, they are representing Australia, they are young people trying to break through. That field performance, bowling performance, captaincy performance – an absolute disgrace. It doesn’t measure up at all. I’m happy that any of those guys come talk to me about what happened yesterday afternoon and correct themselves, but very common stuff. “
After being eliminated by 194 in the first inning, the Indians seem to have done an examination of conscience before going out to bat in the second inning. After bowling Australia A for 108, Mayank’s half-century Agarwal and Shubman Gill got the innings going, before Vihari and Pant hit the attack with a brutal, undefeated 147-run position. Border, in particular, was unimpressed by seeing Australia A’s body language and felt the players could have done better.
“You can handle being beaten and we’ve had some bad performances, I’ve been a part of quite a few, but I don’t think you’ve ever accused Australian teams of not doing it. You can get hit fairly and have a tough day at the office, that happens, but it’s just your attitude, I don’t blame everyone, but it was just overall, ”he said.
“At 8:30 the night before, if I was the coach of that team, I would have been sending some pretty terse messages about picking up your swearing game because otherwise you’re out of there and I’ll get the under-16s from the Mossman. cricket club to come and do a better job. I’m afraid you aren’t good enough guys, I don’t usually get a chance, but after last night you deserve it.
As Vihari played a compact inning, Pant’s strike was brutal. He entered his century with just 73 balls, hammering the end of the day with 22 runs to reach the triple-figure score before the Indians declared. Pant was tough on Mitchell Swepson in particular, who spun his legs for 148 runs in his 28 overs.
“He (Swepson) just got killed, simple as that. I can’t tell it apart from what I saw yesterday. I’m not saying he didn’t try, he tried a bit, but the Indians had no problem and he stayed completely buckled, ”Border explained.
“If Alex Carey is on the line of being an Australian captain, he has a lot of work to do for me. Has dropped quite a few pegs. He’s a good cricketer, Alex Carey, he has a bit of energy himself, but yesterday he should have reacted to the way he felt in general in the team.