Australia suffered the ignominy of a massive innings and 132-run defeat at the hands of India in the first of four Tests in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on Saturday, February 12, on Day 3 of the game itself. With the side being beaten so easily, the onus is on the team management and coaching staff to change things ahead of the second match in Delhi.
Reports from Down Under suggest that one of the big decisions that the side will take is to replace a struggling David Warner with off-spin all-rounder Travis Head for the second Test, which starts in New Delhi on February 17.
Warner was in poor form in the match, losing his wickets after scoring just one and 10 runs in his two innings respectively. The fall of his two wickets set the pace for the Australian batting, which collapsed in both innings, scoring 177 and a lowly 91 respectively.
"Sources close to the Australian team confirmed those discussions were continuing after Warner's double failure in the first Test," reported 'Sydney Morning Herald'.
This comes after the news that the Australian spinner left-arm finger spinner Matt Kuhnemann will join the squad for the second Test, as of now. Kuhnemann has been called up as leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson is flying back home for the birth of his first child.
Swepson was on the bench for the first Test with 22-year-old off-spinner Todd Murphy getting his debut cap. Murphy justified the selection with seven wickets and was the only stand-out Australian bowler as India piled 400 runs on a rank turner.
Meanwhile, head coach Andrew McDonald defended Warner, when he said, “it’s a sample size of one game, in Nagpur”. He also played down talks of using Head as the opener alongside Usman Khawaja.
“We haven’t discussed that [using Head as an opener] at all,” McDonald said.
“We’ll discuss the performance of the first Test match. We haven’t even gotten into a selection discussion. The benefit out of losing the game so quickly is we’ve got a little bit more thinking time to work through what scenarios are for us and that starts today,” he added.
