Mitchell Swepson
Australia's leg-spin duo Mitchell Swepson and Adam Zampa shared four wickets and gave away just 44 runs in seven overs to help Australia win the third T20 International against India by 12 runs as a consolation on Tuesday.
But Swepson, who was the more successful of the two pickings three of those wickets -- Shikhar Dhawan, Sanju Samson and Shreyas Iyer, has still a lot of cricket to play over the next few days unlike the limited-overs specialist Zampa, whose international season gets a break.
The 27-year-old Swepson, who is part of the Test squad, should have been playing the three-day tour game between India A and Australia A. He, however, had to miss that as he was called up for the T20I's as an injury replacement for Ashton Agar.
The leg-spinner, who won man of the match award for Tuesday's show, now returns to days' format and will play the three-day tour game against the Indians that begins on December 11.
"The plan is to play Aussie A game at the Sydney Cricket Ground and then fly to Adelaide. I haven't played pink-ball game for a long time. I hope I can take some wickets at the SCG in that game. There is plenty of cricket to come," Swepson told reporters during a media interaction.
"If given an opportunity (in Tests), I can draw from this performance. Plans (on bowling) will change from tonight's game. Overs in the middle against quality opposition with results and wickets always help, whether it is white ball or red ball. On the international stage, it has done my bowling a world of good and my confidence in my bowling is going to benefit from that i.e just being around the guys and the team and just showing what I can do at this level," Swepson said.
Swepson gave away 21 runs in two overs in the first match besides picking a wicket but he was on the money during Tuesday's game.
"Obviously a bit disappointed that the ball came out a bit short. Not the way I like to bowl. Tonight I just tried to spin up the back of the ball and get some shape and turn. That would work for me well and worked well against Virat (Kohli). There was a short boundary to the leg-side, was trying to defend just that. Luckily, I was able to do that," he added.
"We thought we might have a replay of game two we thought but we had the confidence in those guys to get the job done. Glad they could do that. Credit to Tye and Zampa for bowling tough overs. Zampa did well to get Hardik out," added Swepson.
He also praised and thanked the more experienced Zampa for being supportive and helping set the fields for him.
While Swepson has played just four white-ball games, all T20 Internationals, the Zampa, 28, has played 97 white-ball matches, including 61 ODIs and 36 T20 Internationals.
"Zampa has been excellent since I have come into the T20 squad. He is obviously a very experienced bowler in white ball cricket. Played close to a 100 games for Australia in both ODI and T20 formats. Been able to draw from a guy who has been there and done it particularly over the last couple years. It was great to have him here as a mentor, out on the field, setting fields was handy. He was quick up with advice when I flew in," he said.
