India's aggression backfired, says Aus

MELBOURNE, October 23: The new-found aggression on show from the Indian team during the recent limited overs series had backfired on the hosts as it only spurred on the Australians to outclass the opposition on the field, coach Tim Nielsen said.

The Indians were trying to get under the Australians' skin but Nielsen felt the tactic actually helped Australia as the home team was put off its own game.

"The most pleasing thing was that we were able to cop it and keep performing whereas they weren't able to do that and we won games because of it," Nielsen told The Courier Mail .

The coach said his team was prepared if the Indians carry on in the same vein during their tour Down Under starting December.

"It was obviously a bit of a tactic and as a team we have spoken about that," Nielsen, who took over from the highly successful John Buchanan after the World Cup in the West Indies, said.

His comments follow those from Ricky Ponting in which the Australian skipper said the aggression shown by Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team was quite uncharacteristic of them and hinted it would be difficult to maintain that during the coming series.

"They made it pretty clear right at the start of the series they were going to fight fire with fire but for us we know that's generally not the way they play their cricket," Ponting was quoted as saying by The Age .

"We've got a lot of cricket against them in the next few months so it will be interesting to see just how long that aggressive-natured cricket does last from them," he said.