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Peter Siddle is set to make his Test debut today. |
India speedsters Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan used the reverse swing to good effect in the drawn Bangalore Test. In fact, Zaheer's five-wicket haul in the first innings was a result of judicious use of reverse swing.
Aussie bowling spearhead Brett Lee had admitted during the build-up to the second Test that his teammates didn't use the old ball as effectively as the Indians had.
Confident
And, even as the visitors were recovering from the Stuart Clark blow, skipper Ricky Ponting was confident of his bowlers extracting a good bargain from this game.
Clarke was forced out with an elbow injury after failing a fitness test yesterday and will be replaced by Victoria's Peter Siddle who, Ponting claims, has a good measure of reverse swing bowling.
"Having played most of his cricket in Melbourne (which aids reverse swing), Peter (Siddle) is pretty much aware of the nuances of reverse swing bowling," he said on match-eve yesterday.
Ponting insisted that if the bowlers start getting the reverse swing, batting would get a touch difficult.
"Because the ball is old and soft," Ponting noted, "Scoring becomes a bit more difficult when it is reverse swinging."
Sporadic rains and below par performance of the spinners have played a part in the focus shifting to the quicker men in either side. So, it will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next five days.
