‘India won’t be butter-fingers’

Steve Smith hit the only century of the match after being spilled four times by the butter-finger hosts who were thumped by 333 runs. “We had a chat about it and we are working on few of the areas where we could have done much better in the last test match,” Vijay, who spilled one himself, said ahead of the second test beginning on Saturday. 

“We are looking forward to this game and hopefully we can pull of those catches.” Having conceded a 155run first innings lead, India badly needed to restrict Australia in the second but poor catching allowed the visitors to post 285 and effectively bat the hosts out of the contest. “The first innings lead was little more than what we expected. From there on it was always going to be tough for us to get into the game,” Vijay said. 

“We had the opportunities, if we had taken those catches maybe we would have put lot more pressure on the Australians. “But it didn’t happen and we got to take it in our chin and move forward.”

The defeat snapped India’s 19-test unbeaten run, shocking fans who expected them to win easy. Vijay said it was a challenge for his team to show their character and bounce back in the remainder of the series. “We have lost the game and we have to accept that fact. We have to move forward,” Vijay said. 

“It’s going to be a good challenge for us as a team and test our character. That’s why we are playing cricket and hopefully we can play the way we have to play and we have played before,” the Indian opener added. The opening batsman differed with ICC match referee Chris Board, who gave a poor rating to the Pune wicket, saying the surface at best could be called a challenging one. 

“Pune wicket was not poor. It was a challenging wicket from ball one. As cricketers, we need to play on such wickets sometimes rather than playing on flat tracks. Actually it is a good thing to play on wickets which test your character and technique,” he said. 

Vijay expects the wicket at the Chinnaswamy Stadium to be a good one but personally he is not fretting over the nature of the 22 yards. “I go into the middle with an open mind and look to adapt according to the pitch conditions.”

Talking about the unexpected surrender in Pune, the batsman said the Indian bowlers did a good job but conceding a big lead with a poor batting display in the first innings cost the team dear.