Back to the drawing board for panicky Australia after another India failure

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By Ian Ransom

MELBOURNE : A confident Australia landed in India with genuine hope of winning their first test series in the south Asian nation in nearly 20 years but they head to the third match in Indore with a 2-0 deficit and a chorus of criticism ringing in their ears.

The honeymoon for Pat Cummins's captaincy is well and truly over after the six-wicket capitulation in New Delhi, and few of his team mates have been spared the wrath of furious former players and pundits.

"I’m disappointed, I’m shell-shocked - angry about the way we went about our work," former Australia captain Allan Border said on broadcaster Fox Cricket after Cummins's team lost nine wickets in a session to hasten defeat on Sunday.

"It was panicky, frenetic batting."

After a dominant home summer, Australia had ambitions of emulating the great 2004 team that beat India 2-1 away to cement their status as global champions.

The tour has instead been little short of a disaster, with untimely injuries, bewildering selections and familiar batting failures against quality spin bowling - all after opting against playing a single tour match.

"Major, major, major mistake," former Australia captain Michael Clarke told Australian radio.

"There should have been at least one game over there to get used to the conditions."

After Australia were skittled for 91 in the series-opener in Nagpur, Cummins called on his batters to be more proactive against the wiles of India's peerless spin trio of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel.

They duly over-corrected in a bizarre morning session on Sunday when six batsmen fell to sweep-shots, including Steve Smith who rarely plays the stroke.

They have other concerns on the