Tahlia McGrath: Australia Women all-rounder Tahlia McGrath on Thursday praised Indian pacer Pooja Vastrakar for her superb bowling on the opening day of the Women’s one-off Test against India and said the Indian pacer was “relentless” and “almost robotic” in maintaining the line and length that she bowled.Vastrakar claimed 4-53 to rattle the batters as Australia were bowled out for 219 in the post-tea session on the opening day. McGrath, who struck a 56-ball 50 and raised an 80-run partnership with opener Beth Mooney, said they had identified Vastrakar as a dangerous bowler for their batting unit before the tour.
“She was someone we specifically spoke about as a batting unit. Like I said, the length she bowls is perfect for Test cricket. It’s just relentless. As we were commenting, she’s almost robotic. She just runs in and hits the spot time after time and puts so much pressure on the batters,” said McGrath at the end of Day 1.
She said they tried to capitalize whenever Pooja missed the length.
“So for us, it was about capitalizing whenever she missed. If she gave us any width, we had to put it away. We were also trying to use our left-right combination as much as possible to try and throw for her length. Look, she did extremely well today. And in the second inning, she’s going to be one that will be able to do as well as in the first,” she said.
She said Vastrakar troubled them from the start.
“When I was walking out to bat, she was getting sideways movement off the seam both ways. And she just bowls a relentless length that keeps you on your toes and is perfect for Test match cricket. She’s an extremely talented cricketer and was disciplined with her skills today,” said the Australian vice-captain.
McGrath said her pacer bowlers could not emulate Pooja as they erred in their line.
“Like I said, with our bowlers, we just missed on execution slightly. Gave slightly too much width and with the class of openers Shafali and Smriti, we got put away. So, you can see we were able to bowl a few maidens when we got out our lines and lengths right. It is difficult as we have a score on, so we just need to be a little bit more disciplined with our plans and create some pressure, like, like India were able to do to us,” said McGrath.
On a personal front, McGrath scored her maiden Test half-century in India and said it was good to get the milestone. However, she said she was disappointed not to have gone on to score a big score which would have helped Australia put up a better score in their first innings.