Michael Hussey urges Australia to take a leaf out of Rohit Sharma's book on how to tackle spin

The former Australian batter and a very good player of spin bowling, Michael Hussey has urged the struggling Aussies to pull off a Rohit Sharma on how to tackle spin in the remaining two Tests. Australia has conceded the Border-Gavaskar series within six days this time, having lost the first two Tests inside three days each. Such is the despair that of the 40 wickets that had fallen across all four innings, 32 of those have gone to the India spinners.

Looking dejected against the Indian spin trio of Ravindra Jadeja, Ravi Ashwin and Axar Patel - who is even yet to shine with the ball, Australia will be keen on finding the right answers to remain the contest.

Hussey, who had his share of ups and downs against spin bowling on the sub-continent tracks in the past, advised if Australians could only learn by observing how Rohit had batted so far in the series, they could actually benefit themselves and can avoid the whitewash, which would further dent their chances of directly qualifying for the WTC finals.

Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma is currently the leading run-getter in the series (183) having scored a match-winning hundred (120) in the first innings of the Nagpur Test. To put this in perspective, no other batter scored a hundred while Axar and Jadeja have come close with 84 and 70, respectively.

“Obviously, the Australians can take a leaf out of Rohit Sharma’s book and have a look at the way he has batted so far. The way Rohit has gone about his job is certainly a good way to tackle spin and score runs in such conditions. The Indian batsmen have grown up playing on such pitches and so are more used to them. But it’s not really possible to bat exactly like how he (Rohit) has been doing. For instance, I couldn’t bat like Matthew Hayden," said Hussey, as quoted by the Telegraph.

During the second match in Delhi, especially in the second innings, most of the Aussie batters got out playing the sweep shot. Commenting on the same, Hussey said instead of playing just one pre-decided shot, every player must concentrate on playing as per their strengths and that is where the result will come from.

“So, the focus of the Australian batsmen should be on gauging how best each one of them can score runs. Each one has a different method of batting. So, some should look to hit the boundaries and be more aggressive, while some should look to play the anchor role. Batsmen need to focus on their strengths and the strokes that yield them runs instead of everyone trying one particular shot,” Hussey said.

The third Test will start in Indore from March 1st.