Coulter-nile catches India off-guard
CHENNAI:WHEN Chepauk fell silent at the loss of India’s top three wickets cheaply, Australia celebrated the success of their strategy of wooing batsmen with wide and full deliveries after keeping them in check with tight bowling.
It’s an age-old way of riling established batsmen, only at a venue where no one saw it coming. Still, with an overcast sky, new ball and a firm pitch, Australia deployed three slips, a backward point and gave it a go.
While Pat Cummins is more a hit-the-deck express bowler, Nathan Coulter-nile is known to extract lateral movement with fuller lengths. Australia captain Steve Smith only had to keep his men ready.
Bowling to a plan, Cummins started off by trying to extract more bounce off the pitch.
Coulter-nile, on the other hand, stuck to a line just outside off-stump, occasionally getting the ball to swing away slightly. Fast but not express, Coulter-nile displayed control and that should have been the cue for the batsmen to exercise caution against him. Rohit Sharma did but not Ajinkya Rahane.
Under pressure to deliver in the first three ODIS or face more time on the bench, Rahane couldn’t resist chasing a wide delivery after being sobered with a quick bouncer to prevent any run off a freehit. Rahane’s halfhearted drive producing a nick to Matthew Wade.
Kohli was asked similar questions . He only lasted three deliveries before trying a booming drive, only managing a slice that was brilliantly caught by a leaping Glenn Maxwell at backward point.
That nothing was learnt from the two dismissals showed in Manish Pandey nicking his slashed attempt to get off the mark in style.
With a spell of 4-0-8-3, Coulternile had such an impact so early that despite Hardik Pandya and MS Dhoni’s repair job, India couldn’t reach 300.