Cummins: I thought 260 was a decent score on the first-day wicket and the guys bounced back well. I think they batted well – one or two partnerships – and it was evenly matched at the innings break. Disappointing (on Australia’s batting approach) – the pressure was right on them, but we will have to review what we could have done differently. Similar story to Nagpur. Some of it is down to planning and it wasn’t easy when Ashwin and Jadeja were bowling. I think both defeats, this one particularly when we were ahead of the game. So, this one hurts.
Rohit: I mean fantastic result for us, looking at how things were yesterday. How we came back and finished the job was a great effort from the bowlers. Even though the deficit was just one run, I felt we were very much behind; we had to bat last. I mean on a pitch like that, you have to come out and try to do different things. We knew they were going to come and play shots. For us, it was about not panicking and we had to hit that area rather than panicking. I’ve seen them bowl enough and take wickets in these kinds of conditions. We had discussed some things in the morning that we had to do, and that worked for us.
Look, in every game you play here there is some moisture and what I notice in three days is it has a lot to offer in the first session. Then the pitch gets slower and slower and there is not enough bite in the pitch – it’s something we focussed on. I had a good chat with the bowlers and they are masters of these conditions. It was important for us to stay calm and let the mistakes happen. When you play Test cricket, there are a lot of [big] moments, but I thought the partnership between Virat and Jadeja and Axar and Ash… to get that hundred partnership was never going to be easy. Even then, we knew we had to bowl well and restrict them to as low as possible.
Jadeja is the Player of the Match once again: I think I was enjoying my bowling and this kind of wicket suits me. I was just looking to bowl at stumps and I knew they were going to sweep. I always keep things simple, and even yesterday they were looking for runs and their intent was very aggressive.
India vs Australia Highlights today. 2nd Test, Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi, Sunday 19-2-2023, Australia tour of India 2023.
Toss: Australia chose to bat first.
India team: Rohit (capt), Rahul, Pujara, Kohli, Shreyas, Jadeja, Bharat (wk), Axar, Ashwin, Shami, Siraj
Australia team: Warner, Khawaja, Labuschagne, Smith, Head, Handscomb, Carey (wk), Cummins (capt), Murphy, Lyon, Kuhnemann
Head to Head In Test’s: 103
India Won: 31
Australia Won: 43
India Test Rankings: 2nd
Australia Test Rankings: 1st
Form guide
(Last five completed matches, most recent first)
India WWWLW
Australia LDWWW
Match Timings: 4:00 AM GMT | 9:30 PM Local
Umpires – Michael Gough, Nitin Menon
TV Umpire – Richard Illingworth
Match Referee – Andy Pycroft
Reserve Umpire – Anil Chaudhary
Match number – Test no. 2493
