Australian captain Tim Paine said Wednesday that Sri Lanka should prepare themselves for a bouncer barrage when the first day-night Test gets under way in Brisbane this week.
Paine said that Australia’s much-vaunted pace attack hadn’t used the bouncer effectively in their recent series loss to India.
The Australians went into the Test series against India boasting one of the most formidable pace attacks in world cricket – but Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins were comprehensively outbowled by their Indian counterparts.
To make matters worse, the three pacemen failed to get a single lbw decision as India claimed a historic series win.
Paine said while praise should go to the Indian batsmen, his bowlers will be better prepared when the day-night Test against Sri Lanka begins Thursday.
“India batted really well,” he conceded.
“Sub-continent players, when the wickets are good, like the ball being bowled at their stumps and they don’t miss too many when they’re in the form some of those guys were in.”
The Australian skipper said the bowling attack, which has lost Hazlewood to injury, would have to improve on the lively Gabba wicket.
“Look, I would have liked to have been hitting the stumps a little bit more than we were and that’s been spoken about,” he said.
“But I also felt we didn’t use the bouncer as much in that series as we would have liked.”
“Sometimes when you use the bouncer a couple of times an over, when you do pitch it up it’s a bit more effective.”
He said his team was now squarely focused on the Sri Lankans.
“We want to be scoring hundreds, but most of all we want to win the series,” Paine said.
“We know it’s going to be hard, but it starts out here tomorrow and it starts in the first hour – that’s as simple as it is for us.”
The Australians are in line to give Test debuts to batsmen Kurtis Patterson and Will Pucovski, and fast bowler Jhye Richardson.
Patterson and 20-year-old Pucovski will play in Australia’s faltering top six if selected, while Richardson could take Hazlewood’s place following impressive performances in the ODI series against India.
“It’s really exciting to have a number of young guys in the group,” Paine said.
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