The making of a historic Test series win against Australia was already started in July, reveals India’s bowling coach Bharat Arun. He stated that they have planned to trap Aussies batting mainstays Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne on the leg side after observing their Test series against New Zealand.
Team India retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after winning two matches in the four-match Test series. One of the main highlights of the series was Ravichandran Ashwin making Steve Smith his bunny. He had sent him for a duck in the first innings of the second Test match before picking his wicket for one run in the first innings of the first Test.
Ravi Shastri said that we need to take the off-side out of the Australians: Bharat Arun
Bharat Arun reveals that they had chalked out the whole plan after the discussion with head coach Ravi Shastri to bamboozle Smith with their leg side theory.
“Ravi Shastri (head coach) called me sometime in July,” Arun said. “When we were discussing the Australia tour, he said that we need to take the off-side out of the Australians. So, we had our own analysis and felt that most of the runs that Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschange had scored was off the cut, pull and on the offside.
“We also took a cue out of the New Zealand attack when they bowled to Steven Smith, where they had attacked his body and he had felt very uncomfortable at that point in time.
Bharat Arun also heaped the praise of stand-in captain Ajinkya Rahane, who fluently executed the plans in the remaining of the three-Test matches after Virat Kohli’s departure.
“Ravi called and said, ‘I want you to make a plan where we eliminate the offside for the Australians.’ Then we sat and planned the whole thing,” Bharat Arun said. “We said we’re going to attack them with straighter lines and have on-side fields for batsmen.
“The thought process started in July and when we had discussion with Virat [Kohli], he bought into the theory. We employed it in Adelaide and Ajinkya [Rahane] was magnificent [in his use of the plan] in Melbourne onwards and the bowlers responded beautifully, ” he added.
Not only, India won that match but also broke Australia’s 32 years unbeaten record in The Gabba.