Sunil Gavaskar on Friday rued that the Indian bowlers couldn’t use the pink ball as they should have as contrast to the Australian quicks.
“They have to make the batters play as much as they can. And this is what happens when you make the batters play as much as you can,” Gavaskar said to Star Sports.
“You can set them up by bowling a couple of deliveries outside and then get the ball to move back in, as it did to Nathan McSweeney in the Perth Test, or to Labuschagne in the Perth Test, like what Bumrah did. The Indian bowlers have not really used the pink ball as well as they should have,” he added.
After skittling out India for 180, courtesy of Mitchell Starc’s 6 wickets, Australia are currently 86/1 with Marnus Labuschagne and Nathan McSweeney in the middle. Jasprit Bumrah took the lone wicket of Usman Khawaja for 13 runs.
Meanwhile, former Australia opener Matthew Hayden called Starc a “magician with the pink ball” after the left-arm quick ran through the Indian batting line-up.
“He has that scrambled seam delivery that goes across the right-hander, but when he does have that ability – which he did – I must admit I was a little surprised. I’ve never really seen the pink ball swing into the sort of 40th over and so aggressively swing as well, Hayden said.
“By that stage, he used a really important word, and it’s a bit of an underrated word as well, and that’s ‘momentum’. It was all in favour of India. A difficult position to come back from in life and sport is those opportunities to wrestle back momentum, and Mitchell Starc did that in only the way he can – when the lights are like the way they are and with that beautiful-coloured ball in his hand. He’s just a magician with the pink ball,” he added.
(With agency inputs)
