India made a miraculous comeback in the Perth Test after they were bowled out for 150 in the first innings. Stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah's five-wicket haul helped India bowl out Australia for 104, their lowest score in Perth. After the bowlers' exceptional display, openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul took the game away from Pat Cummins' side with a massive opening partnership.
Before the start of play on Day 3, assistant coach Abhishek Nayar defended the batting collapse in the first innings as there were bowling friendly conditions. He revealed there were a few conversations in the dressing room about belief, something they talked about during the preparations at WACA Ground.
"I think in the first innings there was a lot more assistance for the fast bowlers and I also felt with Yashasvi playing his first game in Australia, getting a bit of feedback, had a few conversations after the first innings, try to evaluate and work around our gameplan and I felt in the second innings we left a lot more balls and we were a lot more prepared to play a longer innings," Nayar told 7Cricket.
"Well I think when the team is always in trouble it's the leadership group that always comes in, Gauti bhai (Gautam Gambhir), Bumrah, I think the talk was all about the belief. When we played at the WACA, we had a great preparation camp and we realized that if you can hit the right areas in Australia, specially in Perth, you can get assistance and we knew with the kind of attack we had, if we got early wickets, things could happen, captain stepped up, picked up those 3 wickets, got the momentum going, sometimes you just need the rub of the green and I thought we had it our way," he added.
Rohit to join Team India soon
Nayar also said that the Indian captain Rohit Sharma will join the squad soon in Perth and begin his preparations. He boarded the flight to Australia from Mumbai on November 23 night.
"We're very hopeful that he'll be here soon, he'll start his preparations and hope to see him soon," Nayar said.
Meanwhile, Jaiswal scoed his maiden century on Indian soil. Only one wicket fell in the first session of Day 3 as India continued to pile on runs.
