JOIN USIndia paceman Umesh Yadav defended India’s tactics of bowling excessive bouncers and in the process ceding advantage to Australia.
Australia were teetering at 247 for six when India tried to bounce the home tail out but the strategy fell flat on its face. Mitchell Johnson (88) sent India on a leather hunt to help Australia post 505 all out, a lead of 97 over India’s first innings total of 408.
“In the morning the ball had gone soft, we thought we will stick to line and length, we did that and got two wickets also,” Yadav noted.
“But when the tailenders came we thought we will bowl bouncers because of some difficulty they had against short balls. So we focused and planned on the bouncers. But can’t say we tried too many because if you have certain plan in place and you try to bowl like that. Otherwise there is no point in planning. At one stage, you can say, it was too much but that was our plan and we worked on that,” reasoned Yadav who went wicketless on the day after picking three on the second day.
Further explaining the logic behind such methods, Yadav said: “Sometime in the match, you get a little bit aggressive. It can be right sometimes and it can be wrong at other times depending upon how things unfold. Sometimes batsmen score runs in that aggressive phase and sometimes you pick up wickets. It normally happens when a new batsman comes in we try to make him uncomfortable. Obviously they tried and connected a few balls and it worked in their favour”.
When asked about the exchange of words between Johnson and some of the Indian fielders, Yadav said it was a ploy which every team tries. “Somebody said something and it started. It happens… Things are said to our batsmen also when they go into bat. When you want to win, you have to do something. We tried to do different things sensing something might happen.”