Cannot fault the endeavour from the bowling and batting groups, says Australia coach Borovec

Thiruvananthapuram: Australia’s stand-in head coach Andre Borovec lauded the intent shown by the bowling and batting groups despite falling to a 44-run defeat to India in the second T20I on Sunday.

After fifties from Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ishan Kishan and Ruturaj Gaikwad resulted in India making a massive 235/4 at the Greenfield International Stadium, Australia lost their four wickets in the first ten overs of their chase.

Marcus Stoinis and Tim David kept the charge going for Australia with a partnership of 81 runs off just 38 balls for the fifth wicket. But after the duo fell, Australia fell for 191/9 and fell short by 44 runs to be 2-0 behind in the five-match series.

"I'm really happy with that aspect of our game. The evidence was there at the end of the game – it would have been quite easy to maybe not keep going but it certainly didn't happen … the guys kept coming, they kept shooting."

"It's just that we were behind on those wickets early on, which made the execution really tight for the batters and needless to say there's inferred pressure that makes it harder to execute as the game goes on. So (I) cannot fault the endeavour from the bowling group and the batting group," Borovec was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au after the game ended.

He also conceded that execution is a part where Australia have to be better. "As of tonight, there's 10 games to go for us before the T20 World Cup and one of the key pillars of our game is intent. You couldn't fault that throughout the (batting) innings."

"Will there be mistakes made? Of course. But if we're making mistakes with good intent, good decisions and good plans, then if the execution doesn't go quite right, well, we're quite happy to accept that, and then we can work on the execution."

Australia are also trying the ploy to open the batting with Steven Smith, with him being run out for 52 in the series opener at Visakhapatnam before falling for 19 in Thiruvananthapuram.

"One of the things we had in our planning coming into this series was to have a look at Steve (Smith) up the top and we've had a chance to do that now. We've been extremely happy with the intent that he's shown with the bat, (I) couldn't fault it actually," concluded Borovec.

India are now leading Australia 2-0 in the five-match series, with the next match to happen at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium in Guwahati on Tuesday.