IND vs AUS 3rd T20: Australia STUNNED by THIS player in absence of Ravindra Jadeja, coach Andrew McDonald says THIS

Ravindra Jadeja’s absence from the T20 series was expected to weaken India but the hosts found an able replacement in ‘outstanding’ Axar Patel, said Australia coach Andrew McDonald. Left-arm spinner Axar, who was shoed in as a like-for-like replacement for the injured Jadeja, impressed everyone with his bowling, ending as the leading wicket-taker in the three-match series.

“Axar, in particular, had an outstanding series. With Jaddu out everyone thought that it might become a bit of a weakness for India, but they’ve found another one again, which tends to happen,” McDonald said at the post-match press conference after India clinched the series.

The Australian bowling attack, comprising the pace duo of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, was taken to the cleaners by the Indian batters. Asked if it’s a concern heading to the T20 World Cup 2022, McDonald said: “Across the series the run rate was high, it was entertaining cricket from the get-go. Bat dominated the ball, so there was really no place to hide for bowling units, in particular death.

“We worked our way through some plans. We saw some good results with some of the plans that we implemented that might be able to transition to the World Cup.”

From setting the stage on fire to a special pre-match tale! _ _

Men of the hour - @surya_14kumar & @akshar2026 - discuss it all after #TeamIndia's T20I series win against Australia in Hyderabad. _ _- By @RajalArora

Full interview _ #INDvAUS https://t.co/rfPgcGyO0H pic.twitter.com/rDWz9Zwh3h — BCCI (@BCCI) September 26, 2022

McDonald added that Australia will have reinforcements in the form of Mitchell Starc when they begin the defense of their World Cup title at home next month. “The connection between here (India) and Australia might be slightly different, a little bit more bounce, different tactics. Mitchell Starc comes back into the picture being one of our best death bowlers. So, we feel like we’ll get reinforcements there.”

McDonald feels most of the bowling attack is ‘under the pump’ due to the skills of the batters. “The conversations always going to be can you get better at your death bowling? The answer to that is yes. We encourage our guys to make good decisions and execute them. Sometimes the batter out-executes you and we've seen that with Hardik (Pandya) across the series.

“Suryakumar Yadav was outstanding today and he’s going to be dangerous in the World Cup but he showed what he can do,” McDonald commented.

(with PTI inputs)