Anil Kumble: "It was a poor day"

Source: http://ift.tt/1psPP0n --- Friday, February 24, 2017
India chief coach Anil Kumble defended his team after the hosts were bowled out for 105 in their first innings, resulting in Australia taking a commanding lead of 298 runs at stumps on the second day of the opening cricket Test on Friday. In response to Australia's 260 in the first innings, India were bowled out for a paltry 105 as left-arm spinner Steve O'Keefe took his career-best six-wicket haul. For India, Lokesh Rahul was the top-scorer with 64. But India's bad performance end there as they dropped Steven Smith (59 not out) thrice as the Australians reached 143/4 in their second innings and take a 298-run lead which makes it much more difficult for Kumble's men to come back. "You are bound to have one bad day. It was disappointing as we were at a decent position when (Lokesh) Rahul and Ajinkya and were batting well, then we lost four wickets in five or six balls which certainly pushed us back. There were some soft dismissals. It was unfortunate that we lost wickets after Rahul got out," Kumble said after the game. The former captain, neither blamed his batters nor the wicket on which batting is getting difficult session by session. "This wicket was challenging and so and it needed a lot of restrain. You need to put your head down, you can score runs on this surface. It's a surface need to adapt. We didn't adapt that really well. Probably if you look at yesterday, the first 80 runs in the first session and the last 60 runs fo ...

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