Australia vs India: Shane Warne unhappy with hosts' new-ball bowlers in 2018

Melbourne loss hasn’t gone down well with many of the Australian former cricketers as they are lashing out at the team now. The loss has left with the team on the cusp of losing their first ever Test series to India at home. While many are feeling that the batting line-up is at fault, Shane Warne is lamenting the lack of early wickets from Australia’s new-ball bowlers Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood.

Rather Warne has pointed out that whenever the Aussies have bowled first this year, they have struggled to a large extent. The bowlers haven’t managed to pick wickets which has allowed the opposition to score a lot of runs which in turn has put extra pressure on the batters.

“The opposition number 1-6 batsmen when [Australia] are bowling has Mitchell Starc with 17 wickets in [the last] 10 Test matches at 47. Josh Hazlewood has 18 wickets at 40. Nathan Lyon 29 wickets at 43. Pat Cummins 30 wickets at 23. So if you lose a toss and the opposition decide to bat and you have to try and knock them over, [Australia’s] new-ball bowlers in Starc and Hazlewood are averaging 47 and 40 with a new ball – that’s not good enough,” he said while speaking to news.com.au.

Warne praises the batters

Shane Warne also pointed out how the batsmen have scored more than 300 runs often in the year when the bowlers have dominated the proceedings. The former leggie backed up his comments with the valid statistics and this should relieve some pressure off the batsmen now ahead of the Sydney Test.

“At times when the bowlers have done well and knocked a side over, Australia have actually made over 300 in the first innings. But when the opposition have made 346, 488, 482, 443, 386 – and I could keep going – in their first innings, that puts a lot of scoreboard pressure on [Australia’s] batsmen. The pressure is on [them] to come out and make a decent score to try and not give up a big lead,” Warne added further.

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