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Australia A batter Nathan McSweeney credited rigorous preparation, including watching videos of Indian star Virat Kohli and former Australia captain Steve Smith, for his performance in the team's 2-1 one-day series win over India A in Puducherry.
Australia A, after losing the two-match Test series 1-0, staged a comeback and clinched the ODI series 2-1. McSweeney emerged as the highest run-scorer in the ODIs, scoring 194 runs in three innings at an average of 64.66 and a strike rate of 83.62. Notably, McSweeney displayed excellent skills against spin and won the Player of the Series award for his batting performance. Trailing 2-0 in the series, India won the final match by 49 runs on Sunday to avoid a whitewash by Australia A. Speaking after the third ODI, McSweeney said he prepared for India's spin-heavy conditions by studying videos of Virat Kohli, Steve Smith and other successful players, along with analysing data provided by his team. Obviously, coming to India as an Australian, it's a heavy spin focus, and you try and work hard and watch the great Indian players on how they play spin. Virat Kohli on YouTube, trying to study how he goes about it, Steve Smith, other Australians that have come over and done really well. So there's plenty of analysts and, yeah, I guess data that were given as well. So it's nice to action that out in the middle and execute it fairly well, he said. McSweeney said winning the series in India was a significant achievement, given the challenging conditions and strong competition, and praised his team for the victory. [On the series win in these conditions] Yeah, very pleasing to come over here in new conditions and spend some time in the middle is always nice. And a series win in India is no easy feat by any international team coming over. It's a very tough place to come and play cricket against tough competition always. So, yeah, well done to our boys and it's nice to get the series win, he said. (ANI)
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