'We were confident of defending the total'

At the halfway stage of the second one-day international it seemed like India had frittered away the advantage. Looking set for a score around 300, they played some loose shots to settle for a seemingly below-par 252.

India lead pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who bowled a brilliant opening spell, dismissing both the Australian openers before ending up with figures of 3/9, said the team was confident of defending the target. “In modern day cricket, 250 is obviously not a big total. But still, there was no bad mood in the dressing room at the halfway mark. No one was really upset with the performance. We believe in each other and that makes a big difference. We keep talking about taking wickets at regular intervals. If you get those regular wickets in the middle overs, it always helps, irrespective of the runs on board.”

Australian skipper Steve Smith, looking completely downcast at another defeat from a position of strength, blamed the batsmen for the defeat. “The bowlers did a terrific job to reduce India to 252. I think we took 7/60 at the back end of their innings The guys executed their skills really well. With regards to our batting, we should be getting the target of 253 on that wicket. We made many poor decisions again. Under pressure, we are not executing our skills well enough. We are losing wickets in clumps which we can’t afford to do. (Marcus) Stoinis played very well at the back end. But, someone in the top four, myself or Heady (Travis Head), particularly once we got in, had to go on and probably be there till the end. We didn’t execute our skills well enough.”

Smith felt his batsmen aren’t watching close enough, resulting in their doom. “I think it’s just not watching the ball close enough and backing your skills. The guys have trained really well. It’s now about getting in the middle and executing those when you are under pressure and not panicking. I think we panicked in the last game a little bit. This game we just couldn’t get the partnerships, we are just making silly errors,” he said.