Indian bowlers largely dominated the Australian batsmen during the recently-concluded Test series that India won in Brisbane on Monday but ...
Indian bowlers largely dominated the Australian batsmen during the recently-concluded Test series that India won in Brisbane on Monday but the planning for it, spearheaded by head coach Ravi Shastri, started way back in July, bowling coach Bharat Arun revealed on Friday.
Not just the pacers, even the spinners attacked the stumps against Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, Australia’s batting pillars, with fielders close-in on the leg side.
Speaking to media in an online press conference on Friday, Arun said the ploy to strangle the Australians was Shastri’s brainchild.
“Ravi called me sometime in July and we were discussing the Australia tour, that we needed to take the off-side out of the Australians. So, we had our own analysis and we felt most of the runs Smith and Labuschagne scored and most of the Aussie batsmen, they had got a lot of runs out of the cut, pull and on the offside,” the 58-year-old said.
Arun said they also learnt from how the New Zealand bowlers, especially Neil Wagner, troubled Smith during the series between the trans-Tasmanian rivals in the previous season.
“We took a cue out of the NZ attack. When they bowled to Steve Smith, they had bowled bodyline to him and he felt very uncomfortable.
“So, Ravi called up...
