Find it tough playing down the order and attacking straightaway, says Ashton Agar
Jul 07, 2021
Gros Islet [St Lucia], July 7 : Australia all-rounder Ashton Agar on Wednesday said that he finds it tough coming down the order and playing shots straightaway.
Australia and West Indies will be locking horns in five T20Is and three ODIs, beginning Friday.
"It's tough, I find it quite hard, if I'm being honest, coming in down the order. It's a tough ask for anyone, but that's the role I'm there to play and I've been working really hard to try and get better at it, and I've identified a few areas," ESPNcricinfo quoted Agar as saying.
"Playing the pull shot is a really important shot to have and getting better at hitting slower balls. You don't often get two balls in the same spot, the same speed, there's a lot of variation coming your way and you have to make the most of those deliveries. But it's not always so easy," he added.
The left-handed batsman also said that it is important to take it ball by ball and not get bogged down by the challenges T20 cricket can throw at a player.
"The really hard part is you are looking at the field and it's really easy to think 'he might bowl one of these three deliveries' so you've got that in your head, the pressure could be on. There's plenty of different things you could think about but the best thing you can ever do is watch the ball as hard as you can. That's the reason you practice hard and train everything so once you are in a game all you have to do is focus on watching the ball and it seems all that practice takes over intuitively," said Agar.
When asked what he thinks of bowling with the new ball, Agar said: "For me, I quite like doing it because it means my game is growing," he said. "As a cricketer, I'm just trying to be as adaptable and usable as possible, get as good as I can at everything I can. That's how I look at it."