‘When it comes to technique...you grow up on wickets that are fast and bouncy, when you come to the subcontinent, it is your first series and it is hard to adapt. When you keep coming back, there are no excuses. You should know the conditions’
Despite Australia's continuous batting failures in the ongoing five-match ODI series against India, opener David Warner, on Saturday, brushed aside speculations that the tourists are finding it difficult to read IndIa’s spinners.
A clinical spell from Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah early on, and crippling strikes from Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal in the middle overs, ended the visiting side's hopes of levelling the series as India proved their dominance once again with a 50-run win over Australia in Kolkata to go 2-0 up on Thursday.
With Australian captain Steve Smith still managing to score a gritty 59 off 79 deliveries, Warner insisted that the defeat has got nothing to do with the batsmen's ability to read the line.
"I find that the players can read them. One or two of the players probably can't see the seam. Players react off the wicket. One needs to have a game plan against spin. When you lose wickets in clumps, one gets tentative. One has to apply pressure," Warner told the reporters.
He, however, admitted that the situation would be quite different, if they manage to get off to a good start in the upcoming ODI.
"If you get off to a good start and the spinners come on, it is a different ball game. The tempo is different," Warner added.
Asked if it was a technical flaw or a mental block that was getting in the way of performing well, Warner said: "When it comes to technique...you grow up on wickets that are fast and bouncy, when you come to the subcontinent, it is your first series and it is hard to adapt. When you keep coming back, there are no excuses. You should know the conditions."
Warner, captain Steve Smith, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Stoinis, James Faulkner, Glenn Maxwell, and Matthew Wade have played enough in India during the IPL and in bilateral series.
"When you go out there, you become tentative. The game situation dictates the situation. You lose a couple of wickets, what do you do? Use your feet. Do you play with one stride?
"You have to adapt here. As a senior player coming back to these conditions, you must know the conditions. You should know how to find the boundary and rotate strike," Warner said, calling on the seniors to take lead in breaking the shackles.
The captain of the IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad rued the dismal show of the batsmen.
He referred to the lost platform in the second ODI in Kolkata, where they had a good partnership between Smith and Stoinis but the middle-order collapse steered them to a 50-run defeat.
"The batters have been disappointed. Our mindset is to score runs and put the bowlers under pressure. It was difficult to get going in the first couple of overs in both the games.
"As an opening batsman, it was quite hard to get any kind of rhythm. The Indians bowled an exceptional spell first on and got two early wickets. We had a partnership but it did not carry on.
"Steve Smith spoke about this to the guys that when we get in, we had to stay till the end. We did not have any batters at the end, except Marcus Stoinis. We needed another batsman with him," he said.
The Smith-led side have struggled to stitch a decent opening partnership in the first two ODIs, with Australia managing only 15 runs in the rain-curtailed match in Chennai.
And the 30-year-old believes that a great combination of Indian bowling and lack of rhythm on their part had cost them severely.
"We have noticed in the last, sort of 12 months, we've had a batting collapse in both formats. So that is something that we are really going to try and, you know, work on and what is the answer to that, we don't know; that's just what happens in this game, you know. It will turn around and when it does turn around, it will turn around fast and very well," he said.
The reigning world champions have undergone some tremendous changes in the recent times and Warner admitted that they have to work hard and find out a `stable` team if they have to defend the World Cup title.
"We are trying to work towards this...obviously the next World Cup. We have got about 30 games and that was the same lead up and preparation that we had with the previous team. We have to find a stable team and need to work out what's going to be the best (team) to try and defend the World Cup. So, at the moment, it's a work in progress," he concluded.
Australia will aim to turn the things around for themselves when they head into crucial third ODI at the Holkar Stadium in Indore on Sunday.
