Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar believes Usman Khawaja’s success in the first innings led to the downfall of the Australian team in the second essay. The left-hander scored a fine knock of 81 runs in the first innings and helped Australia post a competitive total of 263 runs on the board.
Khawaja, who failed to get going in the first Test match at Nagpur, made good use of the sweep and reverse sweep to score his runs. However, Khawaja was guile in his shot-making and played on the merit of the ball.
But the Australian batting crumbled while trying to play the sweep and reverse sweep in the second innings as they were bundled out for a paltry score of 113 runs. Australia lost nine wickets for only 52 runs on the third day’s morning as Ravindra Jadeja returned with career-best figures of 7-42.
Manjrekar wrote in his column for Hindustan Times, “Khawaja played all the sweeps there are in the modern game and succeeded. He got 81 in the first innings after scores of 1 and 5 in Nagpur. That success of Khawaja actually was the main reason for Australia’s batting failure in the second innings. Each Australian batter after that came in with a mindset to attack and that too with the sweep shot; ‘sweep to succeed’ seemed to be their motto.”
Meanwhile, Steven Smith also got out while trying to play the sweep shot. Smith is not a natural sweeper of the ball and he was plumbed in front by Ravichandran Ashwin after scoring only nine runs. Manjrekar added it was painful to see Smith play the sweep shot.
“It was painful to see Smith try the sweep and get out in the second innings. This is a batter who got one of the greatest hundreds seen on Indian soil from a foreign batter in Pune in 2017, a Test that Australia won.”
Manjrekar feels Smith and Labuschagne could have scored more runs had they not bought the team’s aggressive tactics in the second innings.
“If Smith and Labuschagne had not bought into the overall team tactics, I have no doubt they would have made this win for India far more hard-earned. I believe Peter Handscomb, Smith, and Labuschagne are good enough batters to play their natural game and make valuable contributions to their side. All the three judge the length of spinners really well and are secure in defense.”
The third Test match will be played in Indore from March 1.
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