Nielsen blames schedule for Lee injury

Australia coach Tim Nielsen said the cramped schedule is hurting his team with injuries to key players but stayed short of criticizing the administrators for introducing new formats of domestic Twenty20 tournaments.

Brett Lee featured in the Champions League Twenty20 for New South Wales and returned to the Australian team a day before the first ODI.

Not surprisingly, the speedster was one of the injured players after the first ODI along with James Hopes and Mitchell Johnson, who have featured in non-stop cricket in England (seven ODIs) and the ICC Champions Trophy.

"It is a situation we grapple with every day. Dealing with players who play for Australia, domestic teams, the IPL or Champions League. Brett's played six one dayers in England, five in the Champions Trophy and then played the Champions League and it is no surprise that he has got an injury.

"We need to be careful but having said that when it comes to the Champions League and the IPL, we do need the best players to play these games as it is good for the product. We monitor our bowlers closely. We test them everyday to know how they go physically and mentally every day," said Nielsen in Nagpur on Tuesday.

The Australia coach said the loss of Johnson, Hopes and Lee would severely deplete his side with the bench not having enough experience at international level.

"If Mitchell and Brett can't play then we are losing about 300 matches in ODIs in terms of their experience. And we are talking about six or seven (games) between Ben Hilfenhaus and Doug Bollinger so that is one of the issues that we have faced and James Hopes has played 60 or 70 games as well. 350 games out is quite a chance.

Having said that, the only way the young players learn or get better is from being exposed to, you can practice all the yorkers in the net but it is so difficult to bowl to some one like Sachin [Tendulkar] or Harbhajan [Singh], when they are on a roll and the crowd going," he said.

When asked whether he was surprised with Shane Watson's poor bowling in the first match at Vadodara especially against the tailenders in the final few overs.

"Surprise is just one word. One of those days when he couldn't execute his skills as well as he could. India was on a roll; they got some momentum. They slashed a few fours and all of a sudden there was pressure and it was total contrast to what he did in England and in the Champions Trophy. For the last few months, he has been our go-to bowler. It was a bad day for him.

He made two hundreds in the Champions Trophy and he didn't make one here (at Vadodara). We like our players to play their best on every day and he didn't have his best that day but I am sure he will get better."

The Aussie coach said dew would certainly prove to be a crucial factor especially for the team bowling second.

"It looks like a good wicket. And if there is dew, they will spray the outfield, may be use the super sopper as well during the drinks break. But yes it will be a bit more difficult with dew around especially for the spin bowlers as they will find it hard to grip the ball. I mean we don't practice much with wet balls. It will have an impact. The team batting second will probably, the difficulty in chasing will be reduced a bit with dew around, so the team batting first needs to make a competitive total," he said.

Nielsen said teams are still learning how to best utilize the Batting Powerplay, but he suggested the best way would be to play normal cricket shots and not try to be extravagant.

"The Powerplay becomes important. At the end of the day, we need to keep our mindset strong. People feel that they need to hit over the in-field. We are discussing how we are going to play it. It is a work in progress. Yesterday we lost Cameron White in the second ball of the Powerplay. Then we lost a couple of wickets and it affected our chances of a bigger total."

He showered special praise on off-spinner Nathan Hauritz, who he said outbowled the Indian spinners.

"They [Indian spinners] are quality spinners but we played them pretty well. Twenty overs, at two for 105, we looked well. I think we played them well. I think Nathan Hauritz was the standout spinner. It was unfortunate that a catch was dropped of him. At one stage he bowled five overs for ten runs with a maiden and that was outstanding. He really put the brakes on in the middle period. He was the bowler of the match for us," said Nielsen.