Nagpur: Wicketkeeper batter Alex Carey on Tuesday said that Australia will continue playing Test matches the way they have been doing in the past 12-18 months, brushing aside former captain Allan Border's criticism that the visitors need to play hard and tough.
Australia lost the first Test by a colossal margin of an innings and 123 runs to trail the four-match series 0-1, which led to sharp criticism from Border who said the visitors were acting too nice and need to "play with a harder edge". Border singled out Steve Smith for giving a 'thumb's up' gesture to Ravindra Jadeja after he was beaten by a delivery by the India all-rounder. Border call the act "ridiculous." "We highly respect Allan Border. I guess among the group, guys do it differently. We come up against these players a lot," Carey said.
"You're probably alluding to the Steve Smith comment more than any but, you know, he's mates with a lot of them. And that's the way he (Smith) plays. He does it in all situations. He plays around with his hands and does all that stuff. And I think that's probably what gets him pretty focused."
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Despite the heavy loss, Carey said the Australian camp is positive and they are backing themselves to bounce back in Delhi. "It is the first Test of four and we're still very positive amongst ourselves that we'll be able to bounce back in Delhi and get this series back on level (terms) and continue to believe in what we've done over the past 12 to 18 months," said Carey.
"I think we're a really strong Test team. We've got all bases covered. Unfortunately it didn't go to plan this first Test, but we're definitely reinforcing the messages we've had leading into the tour." The 31-year said the atmosphere in the middle during the first Test was anything but friendly. "I don't think so, I think it's Test cricket, it's over in India and we know how tough it can be over here," he said.
"Proactive" has been a keyword for Australia in this tour of India but Carey felt he got a little too proactive in the Nagpur Test. "You can fall into over-playing conditions and certain names. What you see before you go out to bat as well can change your method a bit," said Carey, who was out reverse-sweeping in both innings of the first Test.
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"For myself today (at training) I went back to batting more than anything else and reacting to what's being bowled down at me and trusting that method. Maybe (I was) a little bit too keen to play a different style, but in my first Test over here that's not a bad learning to have.
Carey said the performance of the Indian spin duo of Jadeja and Axar Patel showed patience can be as effective as proactiveness. "Hopefully I can find that balance along with all our players as well. We obviously want to be proactive, but calm and patient (as well), and we had a pretty good look at that first-hand with a few of their players. "At times it might be (required to bat) in fast-forward mode but Jadeja and Axar showed as well, you can be pretty patient." (PTI)
