The Australians’ obsession with sweeping, selecting three spinners despite the unavailability of Cameron Green, and coach Andrew McDonald’s defence of the squad’s series preparation have drawn the majority of criticism following the Delhi debacle.
Former Australian Test quick Mike Whitney has taken aim elsewhere, swiping Nathan Lyon over a strategy employed by the veteran off-spinner in the second match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.
Lyon responded emphatically to his awful outing in the first Test, capturing 5-67 and 2-49 in Delhi.
READ MORE: Khawaja torched for casual response to Delhi debacle
READ MORE: ‘Wasted’ Dragon has no memory of teammate fight
READ MORE: More than 30 countries in Olympics stand-off
The 35-year-old bowled the majority of his overs around the wicket and took six of his seven scalps around the wicket.
But Whitney whacked exactly that after Australia lost by six wickets in less than eight sessions.
Off-spinners commonly bowl over the wicket to right-handers because it increases the likelihood of bowled and lbw dismissals, due to the angle at which the ball is fired in.
“Look, I’m never going to criticise Nathan Lyon; he’s got 450-plus Test wickets,” Whitney said on 2GB’s Wide World of Sports radio.
“But he continually bowled around the wicket to that leg-side field.
“I wish he had have bowled over the wicket, attacking the pads and bowling into the stumps.
“That’s what they do, and they do it really, really well.
“Their fields are in exactly the right places and we’re under pressure all the time.”
Whitney also disagreed with Matthew Kuhnemann opening the bowling on his Test debut.
Pat Cummins and Kuhnemann opened the bowling for India’s first innings with the bat, and Lyon and Kuhnemann took the new ball for India’s second dig.
“You see (Ravichandran) Ashwin take the new ball and bowl, and we sort of go, ‘Oh, a spinner with the new ball?’. Mate, he’s done that 500 times in India, in domestic cricket, one-day cricket, Test cricket,” Whitney said.
“So, we throw the ball to Kuhnemann on debut and say, ‘Away you go, champ!’. It’s just a whole new world.”
The Indians only needed to draw the series to retain the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, having stunned Australia in Australia over the 2020-21 summer.
The hosts will aim to take a 3-0 series lead in the third Test at Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore, beginning next Wednesday.
Whitney was blunt as he stewed on Australia’s tour of India, saying Cummins and his teammates are in “a world of pain”.
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!
Discussion about this post