MCG defeat is gone, not forgotten
New strategy in place to neutralise Indian tactics
MARNUS ( Labuschagne), Steve ( Smith) and I were at dinner at the team hotel after arriving in Sydney.
Whenever the three of us get together, talk always turns to cricket and tactics.
We’ve actually had a few chats among ourselves since the Melbourne Test, mostly about our plans for the SCG.
The three of us went down for a net session the next day on what would have been the fifth day at the MCG.
We worked on tactics for handling Ravi Ashwin, on how to score when he bowls that leg stump line and packs the leg side field.
A lot of talk goes on among the group between games about bowlers, field placements and things we can do better.
We’ve got better at sharing each other’s plans, which makes it easy in the middle when batting. If I know what Marnus or Smithy or whoever else I’m batting with is trying to do to a certain bloke, then I can feed in to that strategy on the spot.
Most of you have probably seen The Test ( documentary) and how we handled the loss at Headingley.
In that instance I looked around the room and everybody was devastated about losing a game we should have won, and I knew I had to get on top of that.
I gathered my thoughts in the shower, said a few things and told everybody we had to move on. The next morning we went over the game again, which was a brave thing to do, had breakfast and started planning for the next match.
My job is to read the room and it was a very different situation in Melbourne.
We were disappointed, but not devastated.
I had a lot to do after the game, there were captain’s meetings and we got fined for slow over rates so I had to be a part of that before joining the boys. When I got back we all sat around and had a beer, wound down and maybe 30 minutes in we had a chat about what had taken place.
Sometimes after you have played poorly it’s not a bad thing to have time to sit and reflect as individuals and then bring it all together.
The conversations have to be had — you can’t ignore the things you do badly — and we spoke about plans to deal with the Indians.
Everyone contributes, it is a very open conversation.
It’s not a complicated game. Sometimes you can sit around and look for things, but we just need to bat better for longer. We’ve allowed them to build pressure on us and we haven’t found a way to get through it. From there, you have informal chats
Obviously we were disappointed, about the loss but more so with the way we played, but I reiterated after that we have world class players in this team and I have confidence it will come good.
We’re working hard and we’ve responded well to a loss before — as you saw with Headingley — we know how to handle those situations and from that moment everyone has been really keen to get to Sydney and to prepare for the next game.
As I’ve said for the past 12 months, good teams look forward, poor ones look backward. You leave a loss there in the dressing room.
Our fielding was not up to scratch, but that can happen.
It happened to India in the first Test.
In Melbourne, it felt a little bit like the mistakes gained a bit of momentum; you drop one, you drop two, sport is one of those funny things. It’s the same when you watch the footy, a team kicks three behinds then misses another one and everyone starts thinking about it and you get a bit tight and drop or miss a few more.
You want it so badly, you want to be winning and maybe you try too hard.
I think we tried too hard. Sometimes you just have to play the game. If you string together small wins, all of a sudden you win a session, then you win the day and maybe another day, but it starts with focusing on the moment.
Now we are in Sydney and Davey ( Warner) is back. He brings so much with him.
I love having him around, he brings a different intensity, a different energy and he breeds confidence.
The SCG Test is an opportunity we’re looking forward to. It’s great that there are crowds, even limited ones. It’s great to be in the middle of an intense series and we are so lucky to be playing cricket.