Adeliade, Jan 26: Australian fast bowler Peter Siddle impressed with a five-wicket haul on a batsman-friendly pitch on Day 3 at the Adelaide Oval. After claiming Virender Sehwag yesterday, the medium pacer broke the overnight stand between Gautam Gambhir and Sachin Tendulkar claiming both wickets. Later he dismissed R Ashwin and Zaheer Khan to help wrap up the Indian innings for another score below 300.
Excerpts from Siddle’s brief TV interview:
On how he would rate his five-for
It is up there. Every opportunity you get out there, it is always hard work and I was lucky enough it was my chance today. The boys did well. Ryan Harris and Ben Hilfenhaus, the pressure [that] they built up before I came on was tremendous and I was lucky to get on the end of that.
On the difference in the build up to this Test match as compared to the other three
It was all right. We were lucky enough that we finished early in Perth. [We] got a couple of extra days at home which is always nice. And to get over here and get a very good training session in is always good preparation. We worked hard and this is a nice place to play so it was good fun.
On whether setting an appropriate target for India would be a tough decision given the conditions and the reputation of the visiting batsmen
Yes, it is, but there is plenty of time. There are two days left in the game, 180 overs. There is a lot of cricket to be played. The wicket from now on is going to get hard to bat on as you have seen […]. It’s hard work so it’s going to take a lot of time. It is going to be hard to say how many runs. The wicket will deteriorate plenty so it’s going to be up and down in the next couple of days. Hopefully we should be all right to go.
On Gautam Gambhir’s comment about having to bowl in the subcontinent to proved one’s worth
[…] Obviously he is just saying that to try and get me fired up and to get me off my game. But as you can see it didn’t work again for him here today. […] We are going to stick to hard work on the wicket till we get riled up and just keep going.
