Australian cricket great slams ‘unacceptable’ scenes as India takes stranglehold on Test

Former Test star Greg Blewett has labelled Australia‘s body language as ‘unacceptable’, but coach Andrew McDonald disagrees.

Australia face an uphill battle to come out victorious in the series-opening Border-Gavaskar Test in Perth after India absolutely dominated day two.

The visitors will resume play on day three at 0-172 in their second innings – an overall lead of 218 after Australia were skittled for 104.

Yashasvi Jaiswal (90no) and KL Rahul (62no) survived two entire sessions on Saturday, with Australia looking listless in the field at times.

‘That hour leading into tea I thought they looked like they were going through the motions, it’s unacceptable really,’ Blewett said during commentary on the Seven Network.

‘It’s day two of an important series, Australia-India.’

McDonald was blunt when asked on whether he agreed with Blewett’s assessment.

‘I didn’t notice the body language at all,’ he said.

Australia still have the chance to pull off an unlikely win given there are three more days remaining.

But unless they can make quick inroads into India’s batting line-up on Sunday, the contest will fast slip away.

There are still 23 overs until the new ball is due, but McDonald isn’t worried about the growing workloads of the likes of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins.

‘No real concerns. I think the shortened first innings (when India were bowled out for 150 in 49.4 overs) alleviates a lot of that,’ he said.

‘There’ll be management into that second new ball, making sure that we’ve got the energy for that.

‘That’s our opportunity, our entry point into the game. We’ve got a little bit of work to do before then.

‘If we can pick up a few (wickets) into that second new ball, that gives us the opportunity. So that’s where our minds are at this stage.’

The wicket looked almost unplayable on day one before flattening out considerably on day two.

That came as a surprise to the Australians, with Starc predicting after day one that the pitch would continue to deteriorate.

‘The surface looked considerably drier (on day two), it dried out fairly quickly,’ McDonald said.

‘We thought there may have been a little bit more there.

‘So yeah, I suppose if you want to say that we were a little bit surprised (that would be correct).

‘There wasn’t as much seam movement or swing, and I think the bowlers were presenting the seam in a similar fashion to they were on day one.

‘So I think the conditions may have had some say in that.’

The unbeaten 172-run stand between Rahul and Jaiswal is the second-highest opening stand by India in Australia.

The record is the 191 set by Sunil Gavaskar and Kris Srikkanth in Sydney in 1986, and that mark could fall early on day three.