We were outplayed despite showing great energy: Langer
ADELAIDE: Australia coach Justin Langer has praised the tough attitude of his young side in the 31-run loss in Adelaide against India, but added that the visitors thoroughly outplayed them in the series opener.
“A lot of coaches who lose say the same thing. There’s a lot of really positive stuff. We got so close, didn’t we? There were a few key moments in the game but overall we fought really well, we fielded really well, there was great energy. We caught well, and probably just didn’t spend as much time in our partnerships with our batting as we would have liked,” said Langer.
He said the pitch got easier to bat on as Australia almost pulled off a record chase.
“I knew that it’d get easier to bat on the drop-in wicket in Ade- laide. Unfortunately we just weren’t able to (string partnerships) as we were losing wickets at crucial moments.
“India outplayed us, there’s no doubt about that.”
‘PERTH TO FAVOUR AUS’
PERTH: Australia may have been outwitted in Adelaide but former skipper Ricky Ponting believes the hosts will hold an edge over India in the second Test beginning here on Friday.
Ponting believes the nature of the new-look Perth pitch will suit Tim Paine’s side.
“I think Perth will definitely suit our guys a lot more than the Indian players, but the Aussies need to bounce back pretty quickly,” Ponting told told cricket.com.au.
Ponting said Australia need to find out their shortcomings quickly after a poor show in the first Test. “They played pretty poorly this week and got within 30 runs. And that’s not saying India played at their absolute best either, but they’re absolutely capable,” he said.
“There’s some positives to take from it but they’ve also got to take a good hard look at what they’ve done through this game and make sure they do it a lot better.”
Ponting said Australia should avoid any knee-jerk reaction and retain the same playing XI, despite Aaron Finch’s failure as an opener.