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Australia’s acting head coach, Andre Borovec,
expressed regret for his team’s 44-run loss in the second Twenty20
International in Thiruvananthapuram, citing that too many wickets were lost in
the opening 10 overs. He did, however, commend the hitters for their intent
during the pursuit.
India, batting first, amassed a massive 235 for 4. In
reply, Australia had lost four wickets and were on 104 after ten overs. Tim
David and Marcus Stoinis continued to battle, scoring 81 runs in just 38 balls
for the fifth wicket, but Australia ultimately could not hold on and now trail
2-0 in the five-match series.
“It’s just that we were behind a couple more
wickets at the halfway mark there, four to one,” Borovec said. “It’s
always ifs, buts and maybes, isn’t it? But we just fell behind the game a
little bit. We knew we probably didn’t have the breathing space that India had
going into those last ten overs.
“One of the key pillars of our game is intent.
And you couldn’t fault that throughout the innings. Will there be mistakes
made? Of course. But if we’re making mistakes with good intent, good decisions,
good plans, and if the execution doesn’t go quite right, well, we’re quite
happy to accept that.”
India scored 20 or more in an over four times, which
was another difference. Australia succeeded on two of them. After giving up
boundaries on the first two deliveries of the over, Borovec said that the
bowlers struggled to finish the over.
“The first two balls in an over can be quite
important in T20 cricket,” he said. “If you’re conceding boundaries
on those two balls, it can be difficult to get back. You’ve got less resources
at your disposal as you’ve shown a couple of deliveries… if you’ve bowled a
bouncer.
“What we saw tonight was that at those moments,
the Indian players were getting ahead in the count and almost getting a good
read on what potential ball might come down at them. I think zeroing in on
those first two balls and how we can structure those better – that’s usually a
good starting point.”
Australia left out Jason Behrendorff, their best
bowler in Visakhapatnam, but Borovec
clarified it was because they wanted to play two spinners keeping in mind the
upcoming T20 World Cup.