THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Despite his ability to swing the ball in the powerplay, left-arm seamer Jason Behrendorff was unlucky not to be part of Australia’s World Cup squad as Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood along with back-up seamer Sean Abbott more than admirably shared the fast-bowling responsibilities for the ODI World Champions. But the absence of the pace triumvirate for the five-match T20 series against India, that has followed the World Cup, has provided the 33-year-old with another opportunity to showcase his abilities.
The Indians didn’t need any second invitation to feast on the Australian bowling’s inexperience in the first T20I in Visakhapatnam. But the only bowler whom the marauding Indian batsmen spared on that day was Behrendorff as he finished with impressive figures of 1/25 from his four overs.
A teammate of Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan in Mumbai Indians in IPL last year, Behrendorff came up with a tongue-in-cheek reply when asked about his plans to contain the duo.
“Give the ball to someone else maybe,” he said before elaborating, “They are class players and very good at what they do. The main thing for us is to keep them guessing a bit. So try to be one step ahead, which is hard to do at times. But we are trying to do what we can. Few changes of pace, a few different lines and lengths and things like that,” Behrendorff said.
A white-ball specialist, Behrendorff has an impressive record against India with eight of his 10 wickets coming against the Men in Blue in the 11 T20 games. Behrendorff believes that extracting swing early and coming up with variations in the middle has been the key to his success.
“Sticking to my strengths, swinging the ball upfront and picking up wickets in the powerplay. That’s what I have been able to do over a period of time. I stick to that. I try and execute a few variations in the middle. And linewise, generally we try to be a bit straighter than anything because we know here in India, the ball can travel to the fence pretty quickly,” he said.
