Watson, looking forward to a good game against New Zealand © Getty
New Zealand's victory against India has been the talking point of the ICC World T20, 2016, even hours after the game ended. The game had been keenly followed by other teams in the group, including Australia. Naturally, a lot of them had been taken by surprise with the amount of turn that they were seeing, including Shane Watson.
"I'm not sure if I've seen a wicket turn as much as it did last night. It was incredible how much the ball turned. Obviously, in New Zealand's innings the balls turned quite a bit but when New Zealand were bowling... goodness me, the ball turned a hell of a lot. The Indian players are very good players of spin but that was turning huge amounts so I'm not sure if they were hoping for those conditions exactly," said Shane Watson, in a press conference at the HPCA stadium in Dharamsala on Wednesday (March 16).
Australia are set to take on New Zealand next and Watson acknowledged the fact that they will be up against a team high on confidence. "It's a great win for New Zealand, so we're going to have to play very well. They're going to be very confident leading into this game," he said.
The turning tracks are something that Watson expects to see in Dharamsala as well. The first round of the World T20 in Dharamsala saw a lot of games being affected by rain but the pitches have also been on the slower side as a result. Watson expects the spinners to come into play a lot more here. "Yeah! I saw a few of the games that were played here and they definitely turned a bit. It seemed like there was obviously a lot of moisture around as well, so sometimes wickets do turn even if they're not incredibly dry, just because of the moisture that's around," he said, before adding that Australia have other options as well in the bowling department. "Spin isn't the only way to do well here. We have other options in the side. Last night, [Jasprit] Bumrah showed if the bowler has the skills, you don't need to be a spinner to be good in these conditions and in that way we have plenty of skillful bowlers who can be useful in these conditions," he said.
The pitch in Dharamsala is certainly not going to be as dry as the one in Nagpur. The rain around though has given the pitch a sluggish nature which is atypical to the ground. Sunil Chauhan, the chief curator, is not a happy man. He lamented the lack of sunshine around that has hampered his preparations. The ground itself was occupied until late January with teams from Nepal using the facilities and later Netherlands and Oman who had preparatory camps here. Chauhan though has made use of some of the tricks of the trade to counter the situation. One such thing included filling a mixture of sand and manure beneath the pitch to aid some grass growth.
Despite the efforts, it is the weather that has played a big spoilsport in these parts. Watson was hoping that the weather stays good and looked forward to a good game against New Zealand, a team that he admired for showing the courage to tackle the conditions. "It took a lot of courage to go against the grind from what you normally would, coming out here and not playing [Trent] Boult and [Tim] Southee and playing three spinners, it certainly paid dividends. That is the flexibility you should have in these sort of tournaments depending on what conditions come around," he said.
While heaping praise on the opposition, Watson was also keen to point out that Australia will not be intimidated by the good start that New Zealand have got. "Certainly, (it's) a big confidence builder for New Zealand to beat India here in India. But like always in a game against New Zealand, they will know what we bring to the game whatever the conditions are. So no doubt they will be confident, but they will be wary of what we bring to the game as well," he said.
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