World Cup 2019: Alex Carey keenly awaits India challenge

The Australia wicketkeeper cannot wait to play against the “calm” M. S. Dhoni.

Alex Carey en route to his 45 against West Indies on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey says he cannot wait to challenge India, especially M. S. Dhoni, when the two sides clash on Sunday in London.

Carey’s 55-ball 45 was good support to Nathan Coulter-Nile’s 60-ball 92 in Australia’s 15-run win over West Indies here on Thursday. The early nerves of playing at a big tournament taken care of by that effort, Carey made some confident statements about the upcoming contest against India.

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“Playing against him (Dhoni) in India and Australia, he’s very calm. He always gives himself a chance to finish off the game,” Carey was quoted as saying by icc-cricket.com .

“He gives himself time out in the middle. They’re pretty calm heads, they give themselves a chance to finish off an innings. It’s a World Cup, so I didn’t know too much what to expect. Rolling to the first game in the bus and seeing all the crowd gave me some goosebumps. I thought it was a pretty cool feeling,” he said.

‘Trying to absorb the pressure’

Reflecting on his performance against West Indies, the 27-year-old said it helped that he was batting with Steve Smith at the other end. “I gave myself a fair bit of time to get my innings going. Speaking to Smudge (Steve Smith) there was plenty of time left on the board. It was a matter of trying to absorb a bit of pressure, just bat and scrap through as many as we could.”

Despite being the less experienced of the two, Carey said Smith didn’t give him any particular advice on how to turn things around after Australia had been reduced to 79 for 5 at one stage. The defending champion recovered to post 288.

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“I suppose when I was two off 23 balls he gave me no indication I was doing something wrong, backing up what I was trying to do out there. There was no pressure from him, so we were fine just going together. I think we know at Trent Bridge, if we give ourselves a bit of time we can score freely,” he said.

“I didn’t think it was a bad thing at the time, I guess if you get out we’re 80 for 6 I gave myself a bit of time to assess the conditions and give the tail a chance,” he added.