"Our Plan Was To Move The Ball Into Australian Batters": Pooja Vastrakar

Pacer Pooja Vastrakar, who wrecked Aussies with a four-wicket haul in their first innings of the one-off Test, said on Thursday that the Indian Women's plan was to exploit the visitors' vulnerability against incoming deliveries bowled with a wobble seam. Vastrakar's four for 53 was instrumental in India restricting Australia to a mere 219 in their first innings. "Naturally, I have out-swing, but while watching the videos of both these teams (Australia and England), they had some difficulty in facing incoming deliveries," Vastrakar told the media after the first day's play.

"We practiced during the training to try and get the ball moving in with the wobble seam, since the ball cuts well with the wobble seam and batters face difficulty," she added.

Among her victims on the day was star all-rounder Ellyse Perry, who was cleaned up after the ball nipped back to crash onto her stumps.

"With Perry coming in, I wanted to bring the ball back in sharply and I was able to execute it properly," Vastrakar said.

She credited India bowling coach Troy Cooley's role in instilling some key values and focus points.

"Got a lot of help with him coming in. He is a very positive person and even when we have not done well he talks about the better deliveries that we would have bowled in that session," she said.

Despite taking a four-for, Vastrakar said the surface against Australia proved more challenging to bowl on than the one against England.

"It did not appear to be an easy wicket like at DY Patil (Stadium) when we trained. We felt we would have to work hard here and hit the surface (hard) while bowling," she said.

"The bowling coach told us that we would have to bowl wicket-to-wicket and hit the deck and try to get the ball coming back