Ryan Harris says Australia will keep up its aggression against India
Recovering Test paceman Ryan Harris has declared the Australians won’t temper their aggression as they seek to extend India’s woeful away-from-home record this summer.
Apart from India’s meek surrender, which has put coach Duncan Fletcher’s job at risk, a feature of the side’s 3-1 series defeat to England was the stance taken by captain MS Dhoni against the behaviour of Australia’s Ashes foe Jimmy Anderson.
In an unsuccessful attempt to have Anderson punished for pushing Ravindra Jadeja in the corridor at Trent Bridge, Indian team management bypassed match officials and levelled a serious ‘’level three’’ charge, which was dismissed because of a lack of evidence.
The ICC chief executive turned down a request from the Board of Control for Cricket in India to appeal the not guilty verdict, but Dhoni spoke out against sustained on-field abuse.
There was abuse flung in both directions during Australia’s triumphant series against England and South Africa last season, and Harris said the Australians would continue to take their cues from the ICC in terms of what was acceptable, not from India.
“You try … to do everything we can to unsettle them verbally, but we get it back as well. India are good at it; Jadeja is good at it, [Virat] Kohli likes it as well … If I say something wrong and get punished for it, it will be the ICC that gets me, not the BCCI. Who knows what really happened over there, but the ICC are the governing body and they are the ones who have got to be making the decisions … If India are not happy with that then they’ve got to sort that out. We go by our coach, our captain and above them Cricket Australia and the ICC.”
Anderson is a famous sledger, but India’s attempt to highlight his behaviour backfired. He did curb his behaviour and collected 25 wickets at an average of 20.
The last three Tests reinforced the impression that India’s batsmen struggle against the moving ball and Harris took careful note of Kohli’s problems given he was India’s best batsman in Australia four summers ago. In England he did not make a half-century and averaged 13.4 in five Tests.
“He is obviously going to do a lot of work between now and then, but you’ve just got to try to get him driving. He nicked a lot,” Harris said.
“Virat is very good on his pads, so anything on middle and leg stump is bread and butter for him. We’ve got to make sure we keep it a little bit wider. He’s too good a player not to bounce back, hopefully he doesn’t do it too well because we don’t want him smacking hundreds against us.
”We will make sure we’re very disciplined, the way we were last season. He likes to get out and play his shots, dictate the game a bit, so if we can stop him doing that we will hopefully contain him.”
Harris predicted another brutal summer from Mitchell Johnson.
“The Indians don’t go so well outside their own conditions so when we get them in our conditions, because they always give it to us over there, we like giving it back to them. With Mitch the way he is going, he is on fire, he’s only going to get better.”
As the Australian one-day team begins a tour of Zimbabwe, Harris will step up his recovery from knee surgery when he resumes bowling next week.