India vs Australia: You couldn’t fault our intent, says Aussie stand-in head coach Andre Borovec
Andre Borovec rued the fact that Australia lost too many wickets in the first ten overs in his side’s 44-run defeat in the second T20I in Thiruvananthapuram. But at the same time, the stand-in head coach applauded the team’s intent throughout their time at the crease.
Batting first, India posted a mammoth total of 235/4. In reply, Australia moved to 104 runs from the first 10 overs at the cost of four wickets. Marcus Stoinis and Tim David kept the fight alive by adding 81 runs from 38 balls for the fifth wicket. But eventually Australia fell short and now trail the five-match T20I series 2-0.
“It’s just that we were behind a couple more wickets at the halfway mark there, four to one,” Borovec said. “It’s always ifs, buts and maybes, isn’t it? But we just fell behind the game a little bit. We knew we probably didn’t have the breathing space that India had going into those last ten overs.
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“One of the key pillars of our game is intent. And you couldn’t fault that throughout the innings. Will there be mistakes made? Of course. But if we’re making mistakes with good intent, good decisions, good plans, and if the execution doesn’t go quite right, well, we’re quite happy to accept that.”
Another important difference between the two sides was on how the bowlers struggled to minimise the blowouts. India scored 20-plus runs an over on four occasions; Australia did on two. Borovec accepted that the bowlers found it tough to reduce the impact after being thrashed early in an over.
“The first two balls in an over can be quite important in T20 cricket,” he said. “If you’re conceding boundaries on those two balls, it can be difficult to get back. You’ve got less resources at your disposal as you’ve shown a couple of deliveries… if you’ve bowled a bouncer.
“What we saw tonight was that at those moments, the Indian players were getting ahead in the count and almost getting a good read on what potential ball might come down at them. I think zeroing in on those first two balls and how we can structure those better – that’s usually a good starting point.”
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Jason Behrendorff, who took 1/25 in four overs in Visakhapatnam, was not included in the playing XI on Sunday. Borovec clarified that it was done to play two spinners with the larger focus on the 2024 T20 World Cup. The tournament will be played in the West Indies and the USA where the pitches are expected to be on the slower side.
“We’ve got a few things to consider that we need to see different players in different conditions and one of the considerations today was to have a look at two spinners,” he said. “We thought that was going to be a good attacking option for us, so we decided to structure our bowling around that.
“We had a great conversation with Jase about how good his bowling was. Also, when you look back at it, it was probably one of his better bowling performances for Australia. So it was a really tough decision but one we built around the fact that these conditions, we thought, were going to help spin a little bit more than perhaps Vizag.”
Another thing that Australia are experimenting with this series is Steve Smith at the top of the order. In David Warner’s absence, Smith has moved to the opener’s spot. In the first T20I, he scored 52 off 41 balls and 19 from 16 balls in the second. Borovec was happy with Smith’s approach.
“We have got a number of things we’re looking at,” he said. “We’ve got ten games to fit some of that stuff in. Not all of it is possible. One of the things we had in our planning coming into this series was to have a look at Steve up the top. And we’ve had a chance to do that now and again. We’ve been extremely happy with that intent that he’s shown with the bat.”
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