O’Keefe hails Sriram, the Indian hand behind haul
Steve O’Keefe produced one of the great moments in his country’s Test history and then hailed the Indian hand that helped hone his skills.
The left-arm spinner, who took an Australian record 12/70 to consign India to a 333-run defeat, has hailed India’s Sridharan Sriram, the team’s spin consultant.
O’Keefe, 32, bowled a nineover spell on the second day before lunch, going for 30 runs without taking a wicket. But tweaking his approach after a chat with Sriram on the ground during the interval miraculously changed everything.
The spinner went on to capture five wickets in 19 deliveries as India crashed to 105 all out in their first innings. After his 6/35 in the first innings, O’Keefe praised Sriram, the 41-year-old former Tamil Nadu left-handed batsman and left-arm spinner, who played eight ODIs between 2000 and 2004.
“I was going a bit over the top, when I tried to bowl quick it was too full, it was ordinary bowling the first six overs,” he was quoted as saying in the Aussie media. “I’d been working in the nets on other variations, just changing the seam angle and arm angle. You probably don’t notice it but for me it made all the difference,” O’Keefe said.
“Sri’s like ‘let’s go out and bowl it and if you feel comfortable with it, let’s start up with it in the next innings’. It worked out this time.”
SPECIALISTS’ IMPACT
Australia also consulted ex-England left-arm spinner Monty Panesar, but O’Keefe said Sriram had been his “biggest influence”.
“He gets it, he understands how to bowl in these conditions, he understands what the batters are thinking,” O’Keefe said. Sriram was a consultant during last year’s World T20 in India and Australia’s Sri Lanka tour besides overseeing preparation in Dubai.
Sriram, more of a batsman, scored 3,916 runs at over 46 in his 16-year first-class career. Interestingly, he ended his first-class career with Maharashtra in Pune, where his crash course helped O’Keefe take wings.
O’KEEFE TWEAKED HIS APPROACH AFTER A CHAT WITH SRIRAM ON THE GROUND DURING THE BREAK, WHICH CHANGED EVERYTHING.