Michael Clarke had come down hard on his batsmen after an abject capitulation in the second innings of the second Test when they were shot out for 131. A day after the crushing loss, coach Mickey Arthur asked his wards to learn from Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay, the centurions of the second Test.
“I’ve asked our batsmen to learn from the way Pujara and Vijay played,” pointed out Arthur when asked what was hurting them more -- lack of skills or mental block against the turning ball.
“The way they went about their innings was a lesson to all our batters about playing in these conditions. You know they scored 47 runs in session one on that day, 106 in the next session and because they were still batting they scored 150 in the last session of the day.
“If you’re still batting you can get to score a lot of runs but you need to bat till tea. They were very good examples to our batsmen on how to go about an innings in the sub-continent,” he explained.
Clarke, undoubtedly their best player of spin, spent some time with his batsmen in the nets. “We had a chat with our batsmen about forming a partnership, forming a bond, investing in other batsmen so he was just doing that today,” Arthur clarified.
“When Michael talks the other players listen because of his experience. So he went out of his way to make sure he connected with every batsman and gave them every bit of advice he could and help them through their net session today.
“It ultimately makes them better players because we want them when they come back here in a couple of years, when they come back in one-day series later this year, they’re good players. If they use this time and experience wisely and they come back better players, that’s the sort of culture we’re trying to create in our team,” he elaborated.
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