'We are not panicking'

“You are being a bit harsh,” Nielsen shot back at suggestions that Australia haven’t lived up to their potential. “(Because) we have played just one game (Visakhapatnam), made 290 and got beaten. It was like the first Test in Mohali, you know it was just a matter of one ball and everybody would have then said how well we played.  “We are not panicking at all. We know that we haven’t got the results on the board that we would have liked. But we have been very competitive,” he explained after Friday’s practice here at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium.

Despite the drubbing in Tests and a crushing defeat in the second one-dayer, Nielsen maintained that his young squad remained positive. “The mood in the camp is very positive,” he stressed. “One of the benefits of having young inexperienced players is that they are really excited about every opportunity that they get to play for Australia. So it’s that as we get older like me, that’s when you start getting a bit down about results. The young blokes just jump out of the bed and want to play again,” he reasoned.

Nielsen also defended selectors’ decision to call back paceman Doug Bollinger and middle-order batsman Michael Hussey. “This time it is more about making sure that our players are right for the Test series at home. We play so much cricket these days and we can’t keep pushing these blokes to play everyday. We thought that the Test matches in India and the Test matches in Australia are a top priority and we acted that way,” he pointed out while adding that Callum Ferguson will replace Hussey.

Michael Clarke didn’t bat in the nets as a precautionary measure to protect his right wrist, which was hurt during the Mohali Test off an Ishant Sharma delivery. “It was just a precautionary look at his hand,” said Nielsen of Clarke’s decision to have a MRI scan done in Visakhapatnam.

“It was a little bit tender at different times and then he batted for a long time in the first one-dayer. He is fine, we just wanted to make sure that nothing was wrong,” he added.