Ahead of the Pink-Ball Test starting next week in Adelaide, Australia pacer Scott Boland has opened up on the Aussie dressing room atmosphere. Boland revealed that there are no panic stations in Australian change rooms despite a crushing defeat against India in the first Test in Perth.
The 35-year-old pacer, who didn’t play the Perth Test, is now among the top contenders as a replacement for Josh Hazlewood, who was ruled out of the next match owing to a ‘low grade left side injury.
“There’s definitely not panic stations in our change rooms. There’s obviously going to be some chats around individual performances and everyone wants to perform really well every game they play. But yeah, it’s like, we’ve lost one game. It’s not toys out of the cot, I don’t think,” Boland told reporters after day one of the tour game between India and Prime Minister’s XI was washed out due to rain at Manuka Oval on Saturday.
Boland also said that they have plans ready for all the different Indian batters, especially after a strong stand between the Indian openers in the second innings of the first Test.
“We’ve spoken as a team about our plans for all the different Indian batters. I won’t tell you those, but we’ve got pretty set plans,” he said.
“They might have a little bit of a tweak after the guys have seen them again from Perth, because obviously (Yashasvi) Jaiswal batted really well there. KL Rahul batted well in the second dig as well and really dug in. So we’ll probably have a chat over the next week and our plans might slightly change, but I’m pretty confident what we did in the first game was good,” he added.
Boland, who has featured in 10 Tests so far, averages an excellent 20.3 and has 35 wickets to his name in Australian whites. He believes the Adelaide Oval as a venue is an ideal pick for a Day-Night Test.
“Usually there can be two different games in the one game. You can bowl during the day when the sun’s out and it doesn’t do a whole lot, and then you get to the night session and the ball starts moving around a bit,” the pacer said.
“I think it’s been a couple of instances where the ball hasn’t dominated the bat. I think maybe last year at the Gabba we took the new ball and didn’t get as many wickets as what we would have hoped in that night session.
But now back to Adelaide, I think they produce a really good cricket wicket that really suits the pink ball and helps it last a bit longer because it does get a little bit softer after 30, 40 overs compared to a red ball,” he added.