Stephen O’Keefe, Australia’s spinner said he changed his bowling action a bit and persisted with the positive mindset to dismantle India’s batting line-up on the second day of the Pune Test. O’Keefe took his maiden five-wicket haul as he bagged a total of six wickets to script India’s worst collapse in nearly two decades time. From 95 for three to 105 all-out, the embarrassing fall-off took place in the span of nearly 40 minutes.
The surrender took place when KL Rahul mistimed a lofted delivery from O’Keefe to David Warner at deep long-off, the slow-left armer added five more to his tally in the span of another 24 balls, a record in itself.
Claiming that the feeling hasn’t sunk in yet, O’Keefe said the slight change in his action hatched results in his second spell, after going wicket-less in the first. Maybe, change in the bowling end added more insult to the injury for India.
“When I first started to bowl, my first six overs, I went probably back to my comfort zone, which is what I bowl in Australia. You probably won’t see it on camera, but I know how it feels. I was probably just going a bit over the top and whenever I tried to bowl quick it was too full, and it was ordinary bowling the first six overs.”
After an impressive show, the 32-year-old said he worked on some variations before flying to India and for that, he had to skip BBL also. Adding that Sridharan Sriram, who is Australia’s spin bowling consultant helped him with different angles and how to go about with the speed of the ball on such tracks.
“I’d been working in the nets on some other variations, just changing the seam angle and arm angle and you probably don’t notice it, but for me it made all the difference. Sree (Sridharan Sriram) was like ‘let’s go out and bowl it so you feel comfortable with it.”
Australia, who dominated the day from the outset, finished with 143 for four, with a massive lead of 298, which appears even more given the state of the surface, broken and dry. O’Keefe said it has been a dream day for the visitors on the tour and that they never thought about dominating the number one Test side with such authority and that too early on.
Having to praise the close-in fielders for making his numbers look much more better, he said the pitch did offer assistance and he was happy to execute the plans narrated in the right manner.
“It’s amazing how things can quickly change over here. I probably didn’t bowl very well at all in my first six overs. And then it all just happened really quickly. I guess that’s the sort of wicket it is. We played and missed at a lot of balls, and fortunately for us they nicked them and we caught them. It was a good day to be a part of and well finished off by the batters.”
Even after Australia pose such a threat to India, O’Keefe hasn’t ruled out India of the game saying they are world champions and have some great batsmen with strong character in their outfit.
He said despite their massive lead, Australia cannot declare early on and rely on the surface to behave the same for them. He said a lot of hard work is yet to be done and dismissed the feeling of sensing the win that early.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I think it will if that contributes to a win. Right now we’ll enjoy it, we had a good day, but that’s all it is. It’s just a good day’s cricket. We know this Indian team, how well they can bat, and even in spinning conditions they’re exceptional players. They’re all match-winners, all their top seven batters, you’d even argue the top eight. We’ve got our work cut out for us. We’re 300 ahead – let’s get more and let’s create 10 chances tomorrow and hold on to them.”