On a day when Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara slammed centuries to send the Australian bowlers on a leather hunt, Australian coach Micky Arthur said his bowlers bowled tirelessly but without any success.
“They had a good first session but in the second session Vijay and Pujara started to dominate. Both of them were outstanding. We should have scored more runs in our first innings,” said Arthur.
Excerpts of post-match press conference...
On bringing in XavierDoherty for Lyon
We wanted primarily a left-arm spinner. We looked at Chennai and thought that the Indian middle order played the off-spin well. We wanted somebody who could turn it away as our primary resource, which gave Xavier an opportunity. He toiled manfully and went close to three runs an over which was pretty decent. Glenn (Maxwell) was going to be the other option. He was another all-rounder, a guy who could bat at eight and contribute something on the field. That’s why we included Maxwell as second spinner.
Do you think Lyon’s confidence will be dented following his omission?
Not at all, Nathan and I have spoken at length about the summer he’s had. We’ve played him for 19 consecutive Tests and Nathan is going to be a good spin bowler for Australia. It doesn’t mean we don’t back him any more. It was the right time to give him a break. He had a couple of technical things that we wanted to work on a little bit away from the game. We are confident he will bounce back.
On the performance of paceman Siddle
He’s okay. I thought from the word go he was up for the challenge. We picked Siddle and Henriques because they can reverse swing the ball and attack the off stump.
On the series so far
I am backing our batsmen to perform better in the second innings.
On whether Australia’s fast bowlers can be successful on Indian tracks
It is possible. We’ve got to remember that four of our squad of 16 have come to India before. There were three guys on the field: Peter Siddle, Shane Watson and Michael Clarke, are the only guys who have played Tests in India. James Pattinson is going to be a good bowler for Australia in these conditions because he has genuine pace and has the ability to reverse swing, which is the key for being successful in India.
On Hyderabad pitch
It was almost a little bit like Chennai. Once you got a partnership going it looked pretty comfortable to bat. We got a partnership yesterday and suddenly all the demons that were supposedly there went away. But it is still a wicket where you can lose wickets in clusters.
On the failure of Oz top order except Clarke
We had a tough chat with our batsmen this morning because we thought they’d wasted an opportunity on the first day. Shane Watson can open, he can bat at No 4 and ever since Phil Hughes has come back into the Australian set-up he’s come back at No 3. That’s how we’ve decided to go. Let’s hope it works in the second innings and the next two Tests.