A debutant’s nerves were kept at bay as Marcus Harris coped with the scrutiny by spin in his maiden Test.
The Australian opener may have scored a mere 26, but those runs were laced with confidence. He said it was a hard day of cricket which placed the first Test evenly poised against India.
‘Stuck at it’
“They bowled really well. We stuck at it pretty well, it was a tough day, it wasn’t easy to score. I thought we fought really well. Heady (Travis Head) batted really well. Peter Handscomb looked really good and we are in a decent position,” Harris told cricket reporters here on Friday.
Queried on countering R. Ashwin, Harris said: “I have faced Nathan Lyon a lot and he is pretty good. I thought Ashwin bowled really well, mixed up his pace a lot, bowled a few different variations with side-spin and over-spin.
“There’s probably going to be a little bit of turn in the third and fourth innings, so Nathan will come into it like he did in the first innings. But, I thought Ashwin bowled really well. He was hard to score off and Virat (Kohli) set some really good fields.
“It wasn’t easy but hopefully we can keep finding a way.”
Patience is key
Harris termed the pitch a tough one: “We haven’t got millions of Test matches in our top six, so people have to be a little bit patient. We will work it out, but it’s a tough wicket.
“Sometimes there’s going to be days where you can’t come out and blast them at three and four an over, just got to grind away. A good thing with this wicket is it gets better as the match goes on, that should hold us in good stead.
“We are still fighting, still in the contest.”