'Batters played too late': Pujara criticises India's batting strategy against pink ball on Day 2 in Adelaide
"The batters played too late, with most of them getting out because of their inexperience with the pink ball. They should have discussed in the team meeting when to score runs and when to play defensively," Cheteshwar Pujara said after Day 2's play in Adelaide.
India's batting had no answer to the pink ball on Day 2 of the ongoing second Test match against Australia in Adelaide. After being bowled out to 180 in the first innings, the travelling side lost 5 wickets on 128 in their second innings at the end of Day 2's play, still trailing by 29 runs.
Australian bowlers did wonders with a new ball in the last session as India's batting order collapsed without much fight. Veterans Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli failed to reach double-digit while settled Shubman Gill was bowled out by Mitchell Starc with an unplayable delivery.
Pat Cummins and Scott Boland also produced their best to put Indian batters under pressure throughout the twilight period at Adelaide Oval. The veteran Indian cricketer Cheteshwar Pujara was not happy with India's strategy against the pink ball on Day 2 as he analysed batting failure.
Pujara pointed out the Indian batters playing a bit late because of their inexperience with the pink ball and added that the management should have discussed the issue in the meetings.
"The batters played too late, with most of them getting out because of their inexperience with the pink ball," Cheteshwar Pujara told the broadcasters. "They should have discussed in the team meeting when to score runs and when to play defensively. If 2-3 wickets had fallen today, there could have been a comeback chance, but now it's very difficult.
"The ball comes very quickly. Most deliveries were angled away, and one angled in, which led to Gill's dismissal."
Pujara also slammed Indian bowlers for not exploiting Travis Head's weakness who registered a brilliant 141 knock to take Australia's lead to 157 in the first innings. He questioned the lack of short-pitched deliveries from Indian fast bowlers and also criticised the field placement against the left-handed Australian star.
"Head's weakness is short-pitched deliveries, which is well known to the opposition. But we only saw two-three short-pitched deliveries to him. He dominates the offside, so we could have curbed his offside stroke-making and instead of a 6-3 (offside-onside) a 5-4 field placement would have been a good ploy against Head," Pujara added.