Bengaluru, Oct 11:Australian speedster Mitchell Johnson on Monday said that although he loves bowling in India, facing off against Sachin Tendulkar is always a tough challenge. The Indian batting legend scored an unbeaten 191 and starred in a marathon 308-run stand with Murali Vijay as India reached 435 for five wickets at stumps on Day 3.
Johnson, who broke the partnership between Vijay and Tendulkar, told the press at the end of day’s play that Tendulkar never gets drawn into duels and is often in his own world.
Excerpts
On the first session on Day 3
When we were out there in the morning, we tried a little too hard. [It] didn’t work for us. As the day went on, [Sachin] Tendulkar and [Murali] Vijay batted very well. We stuck to our plans and there were a couple of occasions when we did not execute [those plans] well. That worked in [India’s] favour. We tried hard with the short stuff and tried to get a wicket. Overall, the first hour we went a little hard at them. But in the end we got three wickets and we are still ahead on the scoreboard. If we get a couple of quick wickets tomorrow morning [we’ll be in a good position]. We have to be patient and probably we will get the lead and bat really well after that.
On whether Australia’s pace attack was up to taking 10 wickets on Day 5
We are always looking to win Test matches. Today we saw some balls going very low [while] a couple of them jumped up at the wicket. The talk [about] the wicket was [about] how it would break up but the sun hasn’t come out to break it up for us. That’s what we would have probably liked. [There are] two days to go and it might break up. I am confident that we can go there tomorrow and push hard for wickets. Obviously we have to bat really well to win this Test match.
On Peter George’s debut
Peter George was obviously going to look a little nervous. It was his first Test - he was bound to get nervous. Whenever you are playing for your country for the first time, you get nervous. I was at mid-on trying to help him get through that. It is a pretty big occasion - there is a pretty big crowd out there. He was bowling against Tendulkar and I was trying to put a smile on his face every now and then. He enjoyed it and did a very good job. He stuck to the plans out there today, particularly with the short stuff against Vijay. That is very difficult to do in your first Test. Full credit to him for the way he has performed.
On Sachin Tendulkar’s innings
It is tough out there in a Test match - he has scored 14000 runs. I had said before this tour that I enjoy the challenges on these wickets. And bowling against such a great batsman, it is always a great challenge. It’s not disheartening, we stuck to it. Ben Hilfenhaus did an extremely good job today without any luck. Tendulkar chopped him down and it would have hit the stumps. We have to keep fighting in this Test match.
On Murali Vijay’s innings
We saw that he didn’t really like playing on the back-foot. We tried to do something about it by bowling short and getting close fielders behind the wicket. He played extremely well and he was very patient. It was a good 100 by him, what more can I say?
On whether there were any words exchanged with Tendulkar during the day’s play
I occasionally got into him a little bit - after one of the short balls I gave him a stare. But he doesn’t take too much chance. To be honest, he is in his own world. When someone is on 180 or 190 [what you say] doesn’t matter. There is not too much you can say to him anyway.
