(Reuters) – Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey believes their batsmen must strike a balance between being proactive and patient when they face India’s spinners after the tourists lost the first test in Nagpur by an innings and 132 runs inside three days.
Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel took 16 of the 20 Australian wickets on a pitch where the ball kept low and spun unpredictably. But Jadeja and Patel also made half-centuries to show the track was not unplayable.
“You can fall into over-playing conditions and certain names. What you see before you go out to bat as well can change your method a bit,” Carey told reporters after Australia had a practice session at the same venue on Monday.
Carey was twice dismissed playing the reverse sweep and said he had hit the nets looking to return to the basics ahead of the second test in New Delhi on Friday.
“I went back to batting more than anything else and reacting to what’s being bowled at me and trusting that method. Maybe I was a bit too keen to play a different style, but in my first test here that’s not a bad learning to have,” he said.
“Hopefully, I can find that balance along with all our players. We obviously want to be proactive, but calm and patient as well, and we had a pretty good look at that first-hand with a few of their players.
“At times it might be fast-forward mode but Jadeja and Axar showed as well, you can be pretty patient.”
Carey said he was confident Australia would respond in the four-match series.
“We’re a strong test team,” he said. “We’ve got all bases covered. Unfortunately, it didn’t go to plan this first test, but we’re reinforcing the messages we’ve had leading into the tour.”
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)
