Australia coach Darren Lehmann, on Sunday, said it would be a challenge for his team comprising five left-handers to negotiate the left-arm spin of Ravindra Jadeja on the final day in Ranchi, PTI reported.

Jadeja scalped two wickets during the closing stages of Day 4 to reduce Australia to 23/2. The visitors still need 129 runs with eight wickets in hand to avoid a first innings defeat.

“Going to have to come up with a plan to combat [Ravindra] Jadeja but we’ve worked on that and you’ll probably see it tomorrow I would think,” Lehmann said. “They’ve got to believe in what they are doing as a group and a couple of good balls like tonight that can happen in a game of cricket. For us it’s a great challenge. The challenge for our group is to put on a couple of partnerships and really get ahead of the game,” he added.

Jadeja finished with a five-for in the first innings and picked up the wickets of David Warner and Nathan Lyon late in the day. The Australia opener was flummoxed by a peach of a delivery, spinning away from him before clipping his off stump,

“It was a great ball that got Warner in the end. If they bowl 10 of those so be it. But we’ve got to cope with it as best as we can and come up with a plan and we’ve done a lot of practice in those conditions, so I’m really confident they can do the job and see how they go. It’ll be a great challenge for them,” Lehmann said.

‘Pujara is a class player’

The 46-year-old paid tribute to the mammoth 199-run partnership between double centurion Cheteshwar Pujara and Wriddhiman Saha for the seventh wicket, “Obviously we’ve got to save the game and worry about tomorrow first. It’s a case of obviously applying ourselves much like Pujara and Saha did today,” Lehmann said.

The Australian heaped praise on the India No 3 in particular, “He’s very disciplined and played really well. That’s why he is a class player. He bats for a long period of time. His conversion rate from 50 to 100 and 100 to 150 are pretty high. When he gets in, he likes to go on with it. That’s a challenge for our bowling group. To find a way to get him out early,” he said.

Lehmann, though, stated that he wasn’t worried about the Ranchi wicket crumbling on the final day, “Once the ball gets a little bit softer it plays pretty well so there’s no real demons in the track. You’ve got to prepare for all scenarios here in India, as you’ve seen the wickets start to wear on day four, day five, this has been a really traditional Indian wicket, a good wicket,” Lehmann said.