Australia head coach Andrew McDonald heaped praise on Suryakumar Yadav after the batter's match-winning innings in the third T20I to win the series 2-1 for India. Suryakumar forged a 104-run stand with Virat Kohli as the Men in Blue chased down the 187-run target in Hyderabad on Sunday. After the match,
“We encourage our guys to make good decisions and execute them. Sometimes the batter out-executes you and we've seen that with Hardik (Pandya) throughout the series. Suryakumar Yadav was outstanding today and he's gonna be dangerous in the World Cup but he showed what he can do,” McDonald said at the post-match press conference.
The 41-year-old former all-rounder also shared his surprise at the performance of Axar Patel, who was roped in as a replacement for the injured Ravindra Jadeja. Axar impressed everyone with his bowling, ending as the leading wicket-taker in the three-match series.
“Axar, in particular, had an outstanding series. With Jaddu out everyone thought that it might become a bit of a weakness for India, but they've found another one again, which tends to happen,” after India clinched the series.
Asked if the Australian bowling was a concern heading to the World Cup, McDonald said, “Across the series the run rate was high, it was entertaining cricket from the get-go. Bat dominated the ball, so there was really no place to hide for bowling units, in particular death.
“We worked our way through some plans. We saw some good results with some of the plans that we implemented that might be able to transition to the World Cup.”
McDonald added that Australia will have reinforcements in the form of Mitchell Starc when they begin the defence of their World Cup title at home next month. “The connection between here (India) and Australia might be slightly different, a little bit more bounce, different tactics. Mitchell Starc comes back into the picture by being one of our best death bowlers. So, we feel like we'll get reinforcements there.”
