Rudra Pratap Singh remembers what the current Australian coach Tim Neilsen had taught him when the Indian seamer landed at the Adelaide Cricket Academy under the Border-Gavaskar scholarship. Not only did he recollect those vital tips, the left-armer, in fact, put them to greater use taking four wickets today. “Neilsen was the head coach at the academy when I was here for 45 days. He taught me how to use the conditions here and what areas to hit, that helped,” he said with a smile after handing out a lesson on swing bowling against Neilsen’s unit early Wednesday afternoon here. RP admitted to being a bit nervous leading the attack at the SCG but gave a good account of himself early on. He was, however, a bit disappointed with what panned out at the end of the day. “I was initially disappointed when Zaheer bhai wasn’t playing today. I was getting nervous as I reliased that I would be leading the attack but I had a few words with the coach and senior mates and I was ready to go,” he added. RP didn’t try anything overtly different, keeping the ball in line and just around the off-stump and try and get the ball to swing rather than trying to hit the deck hard by seeing the bounce and carry off the wicket— RP’s four-wicket haul that happened in Sydney was a reiteration of his ability which he amply demonstrated during his tour of England last year.
