“If you lose the toss, everyone’s going, ‘Oh no, this is going to be a really tough five days’. “In India usually if your team wins the toss your team is eating toasted sandwiches, celebrating and having a party because you know your team’s chances of winning have gone through the roof. “The second really interesting fact is that the team that has batted first has lost (all three) Test matches. “One, the games have finished in two days, three Test matches have finished in just over two days … it’s extreme conditions. “There are two really unusual trends in this Test series and there’s been a lot of discussion about the pitches in India,” Langer said. While the Test series now sits 2-1 in India’s favour after Australia won the third Test, Langer says he’s unsure of who truly has been the better team so far as the series has played out in what he described as unusual fashion. “He made a comment in that interview about, ‘Oh, it’s old school not to be bitter’, I rang him about it and said, ‘What do you mean mate?’, he said, ‘I’m not going to be criticising people, I’m just going to get on and do my job’, he’s a class act.” “He would be really disappointed, I’ve spoken to him a number of times but he’s another class act. “But he went to India and on those wickets, I wrote an article in the West Australian where I said his type of bowling - he trained and missed the Big Bash Final, he trained in Sydney Daniel Vettori the bowling coach - on those wickets, surely, surely he would have had an impact. “That was on a pretty flat wicket to be fair, and he copped a bit of criticism. “It was really strange because Ash Agar played the last Test in Sydney,” Langer said on SEN WA Breakfast. While reports suggested Agar had struggled in the nets in India, Langer is certain the left-armer could have had an impact on the series, particularly on the pitches that have been served up so far. That inclusion led to Agar flying home as he returned to play for his state. Shockingly though as spin was set to play a bigger part in the second Test, Australia called up Queensland’s Matt Kuhnemann, with the left-armer instantly making his debut in Delhi. With Todd Murphy and Mitchell Swepson also in the squad initially alongside Lyon and Agar, it was the Victorian who impressed most in the nets to earn a call-up for the first Test.
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