Former Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson wants the Pat Cummins-led team to fire on all cylinders in the second Test match of the Border-Gavaskar series against India. The visitors won the opening Test by a massive margin of 295 runs to register their biggest win on Australian soil.
Meanwhile, Yashasvi Jaiswal, who scored a magnificent knock of 161 runs in the second innings, was caught saying on the stump mic, that ‘it’s coming too slow’, to Australia’s gun fast bowler Mitchell Starc.
Johnson wants Australia to show more energy and intent on the field and fight fire with fire against India in order to make a comeback in the series.
The former pacer wrote in his column for the West Australian, “As an outsider watching on, I want to see some fight from this Australian side. Not a debutant and a young opening batsman from India getting in the faces of our team on our own turf and sledging Mitchell Starc saying he’s bowling too slow. Let’s see some energy and intent with bat and ball, but even more so in the field where it was clearly lacking at Optus Stadium.”
Johnson reckons it will be imperative for Australia to hit the ground running in the second Test against India and put the tourists under pressure from the get-go.
“The Border-Gavaskar series is far from over and it’s certainly not a time to panic. But Australia will need to put pressure on India early when the second Test gets underway at Adelaide Oval on Friday and keep it up or they could find the 1-0 deficit it hard to come back from. The Aussies were shown up in Perth and they will be feeling it as a team but have to move on quickly.”
The second Test match between Australia and India, which will be a pink-ball game, will be played at Adelaide Oval from December 6 onwards.