Sachin Tendulkar: Many Australian players are unsure about their spots
Sachin Tendulkar has asserted that the current Australian team doesn’t look very settled and players are unsure about their spots in the side unlike the previous generation of players.
Even though India lost the first Test fair and square, the bowlers had kept the Aussies under the mat for the majority of the Test and did an encore of it in Melbourne as well, registering a series-leveling win.
Tendulkar, who has traveled Down Under multiple times in his glorious career and scored a truckload of runs, stated that the previous generation of Australian players battled for their spots and was pretty sure of work they had to put in to sustain that position.
“When I look at this Australian batting line-up and look at some of the earlier line-ups, I feel earlier line-ups were settled ones. Those players batted with a different kind of intent but this team doesn’t look very settled,” Tendulkar told PTI.
“In this current Australian team, there are players who are not in good form and are unsure about their spots. In earlier teams, those batsmen batted in their slots as there was a lot of surety in their batting line-up.”
Tendulkar explains Ashwin dismissal
Ravichandran Ashwin has had an upper hand against Steve Smith – whom he strangled twice already in the series so far. While in the first game, it was the conventional first-slip set–up, he employed a leg slip in the next game to trap him down the leg.
Tendulkar explained the process behind both the dismissals.
“In the first Test, Smith got out to an arm ball or you can call it a straighter which Ashwin releases differently. An off-spinner bowls a straighter which skids off the surface when fingers are not on top of the ball. In the second Test, it was not a slider but fingers were on top of the ball which produced bounce and turns.
“Steve Smith played a normal flick to a regulation off-break that any batsman does by instinct and the fielder was brilliantly placed there. It was a well-planned ball and wicket by Ashwin. Both are class players, so someone is going to have a better day and so far, Ashwin has come out the winner in the first two Tests.”