Mohammed Shami was pick of the bowlers for India. (Source: AP)Australia all-rounder Nathan Coulter-Nile on Saturday praised India pacer Mohammed Shami after the visitors were handed a 6-defeat in the first ODI in Hyderabad. Mohammed Shami was the pick of the bowlers for India during the first ODI against Australia in Hyderabad on Saturday. He took the crucial wicket of Glenn Maxwell.
Speaking to reporters at the press conference among the match, Coulter-Nile said: “Excellent bowler. He is a fantastic bowler. He is quality everywhere. At the back-end, he was really hard to get away, changed up well, nailed all his yorkers, didn’t give me anything to hit.”
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On being asked about the quality of the surface, the 31-year-old said that it was a tough surface to bat on. “I found it really hard, actually. I only batted for 10 overs. Kuldeep was spinning it quite big and the quicks weren’t really coming on to the bat. Obviously, I wasn’t set, but I thought it might have been a little bit slower and turned a bit more for us at the back end there.”
He added: “There was a bit of up and down there. All in all, it was probably a 250 wicket.”
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The right-handed added that the Aussies were at least 20-30 runs short. “It was a close game. May be, we were 20-30 runs short. Again, a couple of half-chances we didn’t take. I thought we bowled pretty well. It was a tough wicket. It would’ve been nice having a set batsman going into the last 10 overs, but all in all just down a little bit in all areas,” he said.
Australia captain Aaron Finch, who was once again dismissed for a duck, is receiving his fair share of criticism for his poor form. But Coulter-Nile said he is really impressed with Finch’s captaincy.
“I’ve been really impressed with Finch. He actually hasn’t been grumpy or angry or let anything overflow into the captaincy or around the boys. He’s not been scoring the runs he wants to but he’s been an absolute legend around the boys,” he said.
Despite trailing 1-0 in the 5-match ODI series, the Aussie expressed confidence that the visitors will bounce back. “Obviously, they are 1-0 up in this series so they’ve got the upper hand. But I think it was a closely-fought game. We played well, they played better in the end but the two teams were close and the next four games will be even tighter I think,” he said.
The two teams will play the 2nd ODI on Tuesday.
