"Maybe they were preparing to get dismissed in different ways"- Harbhajan Singh slams Australia for disastrous batting display in Delhi
Former Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh questioned Australia's preparations after their embarrassing batting display in the second innings of the second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 in Delhi.
From 85/2, the visitors crumbled to 113 all-out and that passage of play was enough to hand the hosts the advantage after all the hard work that the Aussies had done.
Speaking to Sports Tak, Harbhajan Singh shed light on how Australia didn't show any faith in their defense and how they just wanted to play in one gear, inviting trouble for themselves. He said:
"I don't know what preparation they had done before this series, maybe they were preparing to get dismissed in different ways. You need to apply yourself on these pitches and trust your defence and spend some time at the crease. But Australia seemed to come out with a reckless approach of playing big shots. You can't play sweeps on such a pitch with low bounce. I don't see any other result apart from 4-0 to India."
Harbhajan Singh also spoke about how all the talk on the kind of pitch that was going to be offered by India played on the visitors' minds. He added:
"These are difficult pitches to bat on, not only for their batters but for ours as well. But this Australian team is nothing compared to the earlier ones because the latter used to at least show some fight irrespective of the pitch. This team was out even before the series started as the talks of the pitch turning square played on their minds."
Madan Lal on Australia's failure to post big totals
Former Indian pacer and World Cup winner Madan Lal was also present on the panel and gave his opinion on Australia's batting collapse. He shed light on how the visitors won both the crucial tosses, but couldn't make the most of the first innings advantage.
On this, Lal stated:
"The way they have batted so far in the tour has put a huge question mark on their preparation against spin. You can't play sweeps and reverse-sweeps on a pitch that has such a low bounce. If you don't know these little things then that means you haven't prepared well. If you don't score big runs in the first innings despite winning the toss, you won't be able to win in India."
Only time will tell if Pat Cummins and Co. will find any inspiration to stand up and put up a fight.