‘Sweep shot’ drowns Australia on Kotla’s slow pitch

New Delhi: Given the manner in which the Australians were dismissed, it is fair to say that they dug themselves the hole for their defeat against the Indian spinners in the Second Test here by playing sweep shots. When the Australian team came out to play on the third day, it had a lead of 62 runs and had nine wickets in hand, which was expected to be an exciting match. The Australians were expected to adopt the same aggressive approach as on Saturday, but their over-emphasis on the ‘sweep shot’ cost them dearly as they lost nine wickets for 52 runs in 19.1 overs. Due to this, the team was dismissed inside three days in the second Test as in the first match of the series in Nagpur. Steve Smith, Matt Renshaw, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins and number 11 Matthew Kuhneman were dismissed trying to play the traditional sweep or reverse sweep shot.

This shot can be Australia’s attacking option against Indian spinners in their conditions but it cannot be the only option, especially on a slow pitch like Kotla. Former Indian wicket-keeper Deep Dasgupta said, in India, players are told from a very young age not to sweep on low-bouncing pitches. It didn’t work. The biggest example of this was the dismissal of Steve Smith. He said, it is so difficult to play ‘horizontal’ (parallel) shots on a slow bouncy pitch. It was disappointing. It seemed that no one was telling the Australian batsmen about it. Cheteshwar Pujara, playing his 100th Test, also said that it was not ideal to play the sweep shot so early. He said, “This pitch is not for playing sweep shots, there was less bounce on it.