Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Doherty says Australia have lot of work to do

Hyderabad - Australia’s left-arm spinner Xavier Doherty is pleased with the effort of the tweakers on Monday but said that his team still has a lot of work to do to be back in the second Test against India.

Doherty, whose selection came under criticism from former Australian cricketers, said the team needs to bat through the fourth day to take the Test to the fifth day.

Australia are 74 for two in the second innings and trail India by 192 runs.

Doherty believes 150 could be an ideal target which Australia could set for India. “We know there is still lot of work to do. We got some quality players. Two of them are at the crease. We know that if we can find a way that works and keep the good balls out, eventually it will help.”

Maxwell claimed four for 127 and Doherty three for 131 to play a key role in Indian collapse on the third day.

“It was a pleasing effort but obviously the damage was done yesterday,” he said

The 22-year-old said he was not aware of from leg-spinner Stuart MacGill’s comments that he was not a Test standard bowler.

“I had no idea. The good thing about being here is you avoid all that. I am well aware there are people that want me in the team and people that don’t want me in the team but that is the nature of being at this level,” said Doherty.

He said they knew that the series would be tough as India has very good players of spin. “We learnt from some of the things we did. We will sit and talk about that over the next few days so that we can fix them going forward.”