Australia all-rounder Beau Webster has not given up on the ongoing first Test against Bangladesh in Darwin despite the home team being totally in the soup. At the end of day two, the visitors lead Australia by 153 runs. At 351/6, they have a very good chance of taking a first-innings lead of 200 or even more.
But the Aussies have always been known to be resilient and stoic, not throwing in the towel, no matter what. That’s exactly what Webster referred to, addressing the media after the day’s play.
“I’m sure everybody’s still looking at it, how later win this game of cricket. Obviously, we’ve got to get these last 4 wickets as cheaply as possible, and then, yeah, probably two really good days of batting, which is going to be hard work, no doubt, but yeah, like I said, the boys in the dressing room, you know, have full faith in their calibre to do it,” he said.
Webster acknowledged that the Bangladeshis had batted well to be where they were in the game but at the same time also said that the pitch played a little better than it did yesterday morning when they were batting and were eventually bowled out for 198.
“Yeah, it’s Test cricket, I suppose that’s the way it is. It’s obviously a hot day out there, but the wicket looked like it had flattened out. A little bit more than it was in the morning of day one. So, yeah, like I said, they’ve batted really well. We tried a few different plans, wide, straight, spin, some bumpers, try and grab a wicket and see if we can go through it. But yeah, they batted nicely and we have to come up with some more plans tomorrow.”
Eight bowlers bowled for Australia!
As many as eight bowlers bowled for Australia on day two. Even part-timers like Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head shared six overs between them. Webster and Cameron Green also threw down a lot of overs. Webster shared the rationale behind that.
“Hot day, you know, we’ve got the 3 front line quicks [Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazelwood] and [spinner] Nathan [Lyon]. They played him [Lyon] quite well. Nathan sort of forced us to bring some medium pace back on and, you know, Greeny and I shared, I think, maybe 20 overs between us, roughly, and Marnus and Head chipped in as well.
“So just a long day of Test cricket where it was hot and, you know, [they were] mindful that we’ve got another innings, we’re going to have to bowl to win this game. So, probably didn’t want to burn all 3 of the big boys, you know, by bowling in 25 overs in a day on a 32-degree day,” he said.
