Siddle rues allowing India to build massive partnerships

Letting Indian batsmen build mammoth partnerships has hurt Australia the most in the series, visiting paceman Peter Siddle lamented.

In the first two Tests and also in the ongoing third match, India batsmen made merry, raising match-winning partnerships.

Courtesy Murali Vijay and Shikhar Dhawan's 289-run opening-wicket stand, India are in an advantageous position in the third Test, heading for an exciting finish.

"We have let ourselves down by letting partnerships get too big on us. If you take that out of the equation, our bowling unit has been pretty strong. We have built pressure from both ends, whether it was the spinners getting the wickets or if it was quicks at the other end.

"As an all-round unit we haven't executed quite as well we would have liked. Obviously we have had to pay for that," Siddle said on Sunday.

In response to Australia's 408, India were bowled out for 499 that included knocks of 187 and 153 by Dhawan and Vijay. Siddle got five scalps including those of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja.

Asked if Australian spinners should have taken more wickets on turning tracks, Siddle said, "It is hard to say. You can say that and you can also say that the Indian batsmen have played them well. (M S) Dhoni in the first match was outstanding. Two boys (Dhawan and Vijay) had big partnership."

He said once the Australians managed to break the stands the spinners have played "quite unbelievable role" for them.

Asked where the match is headed from here, he said he cannot predict the result but the fight is definitely on.

"It's going to be hard, but definitely yes, the first session is going to be big for us tomorrow morning. We will try as hard as we can to score runs and not lose too many wickets. Hughes is out there and he has batted superbly. Hopefully, he can dig in and bat longer and obviously keep fighting," Siddle said.

"The first thing will be to get the 16 runs without losing any wickets…let’s just see how the rest of the session pans out and see how the first hour or so pans out," Siddle added.

Siddle also felt that doing well only in patches and consistently has made the job tough for them.

"We have been doing things right for a session, but not for days and that has been the difference. I guess the way we started yesterday afternoon was ideal. Having 400 runs on the board, you want to take couple of wickets early on and put the pressure back on them.

"Today, we knew we had to get out there and take wickets as quick as possible and put pressure back on them.  We couldn’t quite get those breakthroughs regularly, which put more pressure on us. But with second new ball, we made most of that and obviously finished them off as quickly as we could."

About the wicket, he said the ball had reversed at different stages of the game all through Sunday.

"I think it has been a very good wicket, it hasn't broken that much at all and played pretty well."

Bowling out India, who started the day with both their openers well set, was also satisfactory for the Australians.

"Today was pretty good day for our bowlers, we stuck to our plans, we put the pressure on and had good partnerships from both ends and I was lucky enough to get the rewards today," he said.

Photograph: BCCI