Seams like Vastrakar’s day

Mumbai, December 21

India seamer Pooja Vastrakar, who wrecked Aussies with a four-wicket haul in their first innings of the one-off Test, said today that their plan was to exploit the visitors’ vulnerability against incoming deliveries bowled with a wobble seam.

Vastrakar’s four for 53 was instrumental in India restricting Australia to a mere 219 in their first innings.

“Naturally, I have outswing, but while watching the videos of both these teams (Australia and England), they had some difficulty in facing incoming deliveries,” Vastrakar said after the first day’s play.

“We practiced during the training to try and get the ball moving in with the wobble seam, since the ball cuts well with the wobble seam and batters face difficulty,” she added.

Among her victims on the day was star all-rounder Ellyse Perry, who was cleaned up after the ball nipped back to crash onto her stumps.

“With Perry coming in, I wanted to bring the ball back in sharply and I was able to execute it properly,” Vastrakar said.

She credited India bowling coach Troy Cooley’s role in instilling some key values and focus points.

“Got a lot of help with him coming in. He is a very positive person and even when we have not done well he talks about the better deliveries that we would have bowled in that session,” she said. — PTI

Rattled Aussies hope to show fight

Australia vice-captain Tahlia McGrath praised Vastrakar and Sneh Rana (3/56) for their relentlessness. But she hoped the visitors would be able to fight back on the second day. “India bowled really well, they kept their plans simple, attacked the stumps and it was hard to score at times,” she said. “I struggled a lot with her (Sneh); Moons looked slightly more comfortable. I constantly felt on edge against Sneh and she got me in the end.”