Former Australia fast bowler Jason Gillespie has revealed his masterplan that kept former India batsmen Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar quiet during the tour of 2004. Australia, led by Adam Gilchrist registered their first Test series win in India in 35 years, capturing the four-Test series 2-1.
Gillespie had starred in the series, picking up 20 wickets, the most by an Australian bowler, and between him, and fellow quicks Michael Kasprowicz and Glenn McGrath, the pace trio combined to grab 43 wickets. Gillespie said the experience of bowling in India from the 2001 tour helped the team device a few plans, largely centered around keeping the Indian batting order quiet, and as it turned out, Australia played their cards well.
“As a bowling group, we sat down and worked out how we’re going to (make) impact for the team in Indian conditions.” Gillespie said during the show Homerun with AV hosted by Arun Venugopal on his YouTube channel.
“If we stick to bowling the Australian line and length, which is that fourth-stump line and encourage the Indian batsmen to hit through the offside – which is what we were trying to do in 2001 – we’re taking bowled and LBWs out of play. But we are also conscious that by attacking the stumps more, we were playing to the Indian batsmen’s strengths.”
Aware of the Indian batsmen’s strengths of playing on the leg side, Gillespie explained how the Australian team tried to take away that advantage from them. And the ploy worked. Virender Sehwag was India’s leading run-getter with 299 runs in the series but if you take out his innings of 155, the remaining 144 were spread across seven innings. Tendulkar was out of the first two Tests owing to a tennis elbow, and Dravid scored 167 runs from seven innings.
{{/usCountry}}Aware of the Indian batsmen’s strengths of playing on the leg side, Gillespie explained how the Australian team tried to take away that advantage from them. And the ploy worked. Virender Sehwag was India’s leading run-getter with 299 runs in the series but if you take out his innings of 155, the remaining 144 were spread across seven innings. Tendulkar was out of the first two Tests owing to a tennis elbow, and Dravid scored 167 runs from seven innings.
{{/usCountry}}“A lot of Indian batsmen are very wristy and play really well through the leg side. So you think guys like Laxman, Dravid, Tendulkar and Sehwag, when the ball is on the stumps, they can hit the ball anywhere from straight past the bowler to square leg just by the use of their hands, very skillful players,” Gillespie said.
“We felt that if you put an extra fielder or two on the leg side in catching position and another defensive position on the fence, you encourage the Indian batsmen to run more between the wickets rather than get those easy boundaries. So we wanted to test their fitness and we just felt that if we kept charging in and attacking the stumps, eventually the Indian batters might miss one or two of those and we can get an LBW or a bowled, and that’s what happened.”
Australia wrapped up the series with a win in the third Test in Nagpur where Gillespie picked up nine wickets before India went out with a 13-run win in the fourth and final Test at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium.