India vs Australia: Good technique vital on these tracks, says Rohit Sharma | Cricket News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The embarrassment in Pat Cummins’ speech at post-match press conference was unmistakable. His team went down sweeping mindlessly to Indian spinners on Sunday.
The sweep has been the go-to shot in spinning conditions since Matthew Hayden’s rampage in India in 2001. It just appears that their cricketers believe there is not any other way to survive in these conditions.
“There were a few lessons we learned well from last week. We did well in the first innings at times, probably at times just overplayed that in the second. I am probably as much to blame as anyone else there,” Cummins said while talking about the flurry of batters falling to the sweep shot.

Cummins’ entire defence revolved around putting the pressure back on the bowlers in conditions which test the batter’s technique all day.
“Two big things we talk about is the tempo of the game and the method. I’d rather be high tempo than low tempo though, to be honest, if those wickets are being difficult. But maybe the method went a little bit
away from what we had planned,” Cummins added.
Tempo is the operative word here—something that the Indian camp also concurs with. But it invariably boils down to the method used to attack the spinners.

“You need technique to defend as well as attack including the shots down the ground, sweep and reverse sweep. On pitches like these, it is very important to have confidence in your own technique. The preparation for that becomes crucial. Ahead of the Nagpur Test, we had 6-7 days and we utilized them really well. We worked on what shots to play and how to play them,” India captain Rohit Sharma said after the match.
There’s another aspect to taking on the spinners — it’s quickly working out the nature of the playing Surface.
“We were playing in Nagpur on red soil and here we were batting on black soil. Here the sweep was not a very good option, stepping out to the spinners was probably the safer option,” Rohit explained.

The Australians kept sweeping even when the Indian spinners didn’t even have a silly point in place. That opened up the option of lunging forward and play with a straight bat. Most of the Australian batters who fell sweeping, missed the ball by a fair distance—an indication of panic and lack of awareness.
In the short run-chase, Rohit, Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli scored heavily in front of the wicket. Both Rohit and Cummins harped on the need to keep scoring despite each batter being unique.
“All batters think differently about their batting and you just need to have confidence in the way you play. Overall, the batters are very clear with their plans in the prevailing conditions. Getting runs is the most important thing,” Rohit summed it up.