Indians have totally outplayed us in this series, says Watson

Australia’s stand-in-captain Shane Watson said they had come to the sub-continent with high hopes but admitted that they were thoroughly outplayed by India.

“We came here with high hopes of having a good series, and the 4-0 here is what we deserved. The Indians have totally outplayed us. We haven't played to our best, unfortunately. It certainly has been a big learning curve and that is one of the biggest challenges for us as a team is continuing to learn very quickly,” he said.

Watson, who himself had a dry run in the series, acknowledged that players like him with experience of playing in the sub-continent needed to deliver for team’s success. “The games I have played, I haven't scored the runs that I wanted. That has been extremely disappointing, knowing I have played a lot of cricket here and I didn't score anywhere near the runs that I wanted,” he said.

Reflecting on the fourth Test, Watson said they stood a good chance of notching their first win on the tour. “I thought we were definitely in the game, I thought that if we got to 150 and more if we bowled well on that wicket then we were going to give ourselves a very good chance in that Test match, unfortunately things didn’t go exactly right with the ball,” he said. Watson, who restricted himself to batting recently, felt he needed to don his usual all-rounder’s cap to bring out his best and would mull that possibility ahead of the Ashes.

“One thing I have realised, even in the first few Test matches, is how much I do miss bowling and it has been a plan over the last two or three months is just to get my body to a position where I can back into bowling again and hopefully hold together for the cricket we have coming up. There is no doubt coming here as a specialist batsman has not worked out anywhere near where I wanted it to,” he said.

The lower-order has gathered more runs for Australia, with Peter Siddle scoring half centuries in both the innings. “In the end, I’ll just say that Peter Siddle batted beautifully in both innings, as did Mitchell Starc. If you even saw a few of the dismissals you’d probably realise that it wasn’t that easy to bat out there and there is no doubt that we’re doing everything we possibly can,” he said.

“These conditions were, if you saw what was going on, were very difficult and very challenging even for one of the greatest players ever to play the game. Sachin Tendulkar struggled out there as well with the spin and the inconsistent bounce. So, I think that probably gives a few of us batsmen a little bit of encouragement that even one of the greats of the game struggled on that wicket.”