Quicks were too wide, we could be more straighter: Hazlewood

Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood believes quick bowlers will play a bigger role in the next two days and stressed on the need to bowl straighter after the second cricket Test was left evenly-poised following India's determined fightback on day 3 here today.

"The quicks were still too wide. With the odd ball shooting through with that up and down bounce, we could be more straighter. I think the spinners bowled really well again. We'll come back tomorrow and hopefully bowl well," he told reporters after India reached 213/4 in their second innings, leading by 126 runs, at the end of day 3.
 

Hazlewood said back home the bowlers are used to bowling outside the off stump, looking for nicks, but in India the focus is on bringing the LBW more into play.

"Obviously in Australia you bowl in that channel outside the off stump, looking for nicks and things like that. Obviously it bounces through a lot better and there's a little bit of swing," he said.

"Here it's not the case, and with that up and down movement with the cracks and uneven surface, it just brings the LBW more into play. That's probably where the wickets are for the quicks for the rest of the game," said Hazlewood, who rocked India's middle-order with three crucial wickets today.

Hazlewood praised the Indian seamers for bowling really well for majority of time yesterday.

"There's not much swing, and not much reverse swing either. So the plans are pretty simple, but sometimes they are hard to execute. You've got to bowl stump to stump. I think the Indian quicks bowled really well for a majority of yesterday. We can still improve on today."

The 26-year-old also heaped praise on Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane for their determined fightback.

"It feels pretty level at the moment. They fought back really well in that last session. Credit to the two guys out there. They stuck to their plans and fought hard and scratched away for quite a bit of amount of runs,"

On the use of HotSpot, Hazlewood said: "It's a massive series, and you want to have all the technology that you can and if it's available. I think HotSpot works really well sometimes. We use it in Australia and it can be the difference between not out and out," he said.

On Virat Kohli's dismissal, Hazlewood said the reviews showed the ball touching the pad before hitting the bat.

"Initially, I just heard a bit of wood, so I sort of pulled out of the appeal. But I saw the guys behind and square of the wicket were pretty confident, and obviously it was given out. After looking at the reviews, you could see the ball just touching the pad before the bat. So it had to stick with the on-field call," he said.

On Kohli's failure in the series, Hazlewood said the team executed the plan against him well and utilised the challenging wickets at Pune and Bengaluru to their advantage.

"Yeah, I think it's hard work scoring runs on these couple of wickets. So you just have to stick to your plans against him and we've been quite successful. All the bowlers have got him out once now. So, it's good stuff moving forward," he said.