Australia ‘too high-tempo’ in second Test capitulation, says captain Pat Cummins

Captain Pat Cummins has admitted Australia went “too high tempo” in a stunning capitulation as they lost the second Test in Delhi inside three days. Defeat meant Australia’s hopes of winning a Test series in India for the first time in 19 years are over in less than six days of cricket, crushed twice by a ruthless Indian spin attack.

While they were never in the contest in the opening Test in Nagpur, at Arjun Jaitley Stadium the tourists began day three with the advantage, but were demoralised by tea. Australia’s collapse of 48-9 was their third-worst in the third innings of a Test, behind the infamous Cape Town debacle of 2011 (36-9) and a match against the World XI in 2005 (47-9) when the country’s golden generation were already in a winning position.

Cummins’ team had plans to attack Ravi Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin but they came unstuck in nightmarish fashion as multiple batters fell victim to the sweep shot. Jadeja could only laugh when asked post-game if it was a good idea to try to sweep his bowling.

“I’m probably as much to blame as anyone else there,” Cummins said. “Two big things we talk about is the tempo of the game and the method. Maybe at times a little bit too high tempo. I’d rather be high tempo than low tempo though, if those wickets are being difficult, but maybe the method went a little bit away from what we planned to do at times.”

Australia dominated periods of the Test and appeared to have a serious chance of handing India their first loss at the Arun Jaitley Stadium since 1987. They managed 263 in their first innings, which looked solid when India collapsed to 139-7 in response. But bowling allrounders Axar Patel and Ashwin saved their side with a 114-run eighth-wicket stand to help leave Australia with just a one-run lead.

“Looking back on it, 300 would have been fantastic,” Cummins said. “260 was OK, but if we really want to drive home the advantage we were a few short.”

Australia travelled to India as the world’s No 1 ranked Test team, but are still not guaranteed to feature in this year’s World Test Championship final if they lose the series 4-0. They can’t regain the Border-Gavaskar trophy from here but they can lock up their spot in the WTC decider at Lord’s.

“Absolutely, it’s still a series to draw,” Cummins said. “That’d be an amazing effort over here in India. So that’s all to play for still.”

Former captain Allan Border expressed his dismay at the tourists’ collapse, saying he was “disappointed” and “shell-shocked” by the nature of the collapse.

“I’m angry about the way they went about it today,” he said. “It was panicky, frenetic sort of batting … nobody got in there to stem the flow with some good defensive cricket. They were all just getting out playing sweep shot, reverse sweep to just about every ball. You can’t get away with that on that sort of track. You’ve got to have a method.”

Former opener Matthew Hayden, who starred during Australia’s 2001 tour of India, was also stunned by the rout.

“These are world-class players, and they’ve got everything to win and everything to lose in this session,” Hayden said in commentary. “They did it so well last evening in those few overs. But what we’ve seen here is a disaster for Australia. They’ve gone way over the edge in terms of their aggressive play.”