JOIN USAfter a hard day’s work for his players, Australian coach Micky Arthur came to face the media and he was expectedly greeted with some tough questions, particularly from the touring contingent.
Excerpts
Can Australian fast bowlers take wickets in India?
Yeah I think it is (possible). We've got to remember that four of our squad of 16 have come to India before. Peter Siddle, Shane Watson and Michael Clarke, are the only guys who have played Test cricket in India. We spoke about this right at the start of the tour. I said 'you guys don't realise how hard it's going to be.
You don't realise how hard it is to come to India and win'. Not many sides have done it of late. You only understand how hard it is once you go through it. I'm hoping our younger players build up a lot of experience from this. James Pattinson is going to be a good bowler for Australia in these conditions because he has genuine pace and he has the ability to reverse-swing the ball which is the ingredient to be successful as a quick bowler in India.
Who do you think are bigger culprits, bowlers or batsmen?
I think it's a bit of both. The bowlers worked really tirelessly today. They had a good first session, the second session they started to dominate and if you have two set batsmen at tea time, they are going to hurt you, which they both did. Both (Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay) of them were outstanding today. I do think we should have got more in our first innings without a doubt and again we tried and toiled today without much success.
Top-order performance must be a concern.
We had a pretty tough chat with our batsmen this morning because we thought they'd probably wasted a bit of an opportunity yesterday. Watson can open, he can bat at 4, he can bat wherever and ever since (Phillip) Hughes has come back into the Australian set-up, he's come back at No 3. That's how we've opted to go and by and large let's hope it works in the second innings and the next two Test matches.
Explain the reason behind axing Nathan Lyon and picking Xavier Doherty?
We wanted primarily a left-arm spinner. We looked at Chennai and we thought the Indian middle-order played the off-spin particularly well. We wanted somebody who could turn it away as our primary resource, which gave Xavier an opportunity.
I thought he went very well today, he toiled manfully. He went about three an over which was pretty decent. Glenn (Maxwell) was always going to be the other option, we felt that we would have another spinner and if we had another spinner, we wanted a guy who would bring more to the party.
He was another all-rounder, a guy that could bat at eight and bat deep for us and give us something in the field.