Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Geoff Lawson Questions Pat Cummins Leadership Experience, Daniel Vettori's Role
New Delhi, Feb 22, Former Australia cricketer Geoff Lawson has questioned Pat Cummins' lack of leadership experience, especially of captaining spinners in Indian conditions as well as the role of spin bowling coach, former New Zealand left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori.
Cummins' choices as captain have been under scrutiny since Australia lost the second Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test to India by six wickets in New Delhi, after losing the first Test by an innings and 132 runs in Nagpur. The result meant Australia can't win the Test series in India after now being 2-0 behind.
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"Cummo (Cummins) has so little experience captaining on spinning wickets, in the contemporary game your captain plays very little Sheffield Shield, and he certainly doesn't play on spinning wickets."
"So where does he learn to do all the creative and adaptable things you need to do? He doesn't, he just gets thrown in the deep end and we watch a lot of videos and make decisions," said Lawson on SEN 1170 Afternoons radio show.
Lawson remarked Australia didn't have any strategy to break the 114-run partnership between Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin in India's first innings. While Axar made 74, Ashwin scored 37 in India's total of 262 after being 139/7 at one point.
"When Axar Patel (is) having a partnership with (Ravi) Ashwin, we're not sure how we are going about breaking them down, those couple of partnerships have cost us two Test matches," he added.
Lawson then took aim at Vettori, for not giving much inputs to spinners on how they should bowl in Indian conditions. "The man who's probably not copping as much as he should is Daniel Vettori who is one of the great left-arm orthodox bowlers in the world, but he should be advising on how we're going to bowl and how we're going to play against that sort of bowling."
"He seems to have escaped a bit of attention here because when I see shots of the dressing room I think, 'What's Vettori's input here, he's the man who was a great slow ball'. He should perhaps be having more input than most."
The third Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test between India and Australia will be played at Holkar Stadium in Indore from March 1-5, followed by the fourth and final game at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad from March 9-13.
"He seems to have escaped a bit of attention here because when I see shots of the dressing room I think, 'What's Vettori's input here, he's the man who was a great slow ball'. He should perhaps be having more input than most."
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