The quality of bowling India faced in Australia was ‘unimaginable’: R Sridhar

Indian fielding coach R Sridhar opined that the quality of bowling India faced during their recently concluded tour of Australia was ‘unimaginable’.

He further stated that irrespective of the result, the experience and confidence gained by the India batsmen was tremendous.

A depleted Indian side created history by overcoming the threat posed by Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon to beat Australia 2-1.

“I’m telling you, the batters who played in this series... the quality of bowling they faced was unimaginable.

“When you invest in these players, and they go out and play, whether they get runs or not, the experience they got and the confidence they’ll get is something unimaginable,” R Sridhar told Cricketnext.

Virat Kohli’s 74 in Adelaide set the tone for the India batsmen. From Ajinkya Rahane’s century to Cheteshwar Pujara’s defiance to the rise of Rishabh Pant and Shubman Gill, India produced several memorable batting performances against the tail-up Australian attack.

Ajinkya Rahane’s MCG ton as India captain an epic: R Sridhar

Wiping out the horrific memories of the 36 all out at Adelaide, skipper Ajinkya Rahane led India’s batting renaissance in the tour with a finely crafted match-winning century at Melbourne.

Stating the difficulty level of Ajinkya Rahane’s knock at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), R Sridhar added:

“Playing Australia in Australia... like I told Ashwin in Kutti Story (Ashwin’s YouTube series), Ajinkya’s century in Melbourne will go down as one of the most epic knocks because, for the first three hours, it was English conditions on an Australian pitch. It was unbelievable. Cloudy, ball jagging around... bowlers at 145+. Ajinkya’s 100 is so so so special. 1033 wickets between the Australian bowlers. And I hear their record in Australia is better than McGrath, Gillespie, Warne and Brett Lee.”

Ajinkya Rahane became the only Indian captain after Sachin Tendulkar to register a Test hundred at MCG.

The 32-year-old recently revealed that he sought inspiration from the Sachin Tendulkar classic from the 1999 Boxing Day Test.