Paine says in absence of Smith, Warner, his batsmen failed against top class Indian bowling attack

Comprehensively beaten by India at the MCG to concede a Test series lead, Australia skipper Tim Paine Sunday admitted his batsmen failed to cope with the high quality opposition bowling attack in the absence of banned Steve Smith and David Warner.

India beat Australia by 137 runs in the third Test to go 2-1 up in the four-match series and take giant strides towards winning their first ever Test series on Australian soil in seven decades.

But Paine sought to explain the defeat to the team's inexperience in the absence of Smith and Warner who were banned, along with Cameron Bancroft, for their involvement in the ball-tampering scandal in the Cape Town Test earlier this year. Bancroft's ban period ended on Saturday while Smith and Warner will have to wait till March end.

"It is inexperience. It is pressure. India's bowling attack being probably as good as probably most of these guys have ever faced. It is pretty clear, if you take 2 or 3 of the best players out of anyone's lineup in the world, you're going to struggle a little bit at times and have inconsistent performances. That's what we are seeing," Paine said at the post-match press conference.

"In Perth, on a really tough wicket, our top six dug in and had a real crack. In this game, no doubt we were a little bit disappointing. That's going to happen from time to time. We have to make sure we're improving and our good and our bad is a little bit closer together than what it has been in the last couple of Tests. But I think it's pretty common when you've got inexperienced players in your top six against high quality bowling."
Talking about the MCG pitch, he said, "The wicket was always going to be a bit of a grind. It was going to be slow and at times expose a bit of a gap between sides. They won the toss, batted really well and kept us out there for two days. After that we were behind the eight ball, it's pretty hard to come back from that. I think plain and simple, we were outplayed and India deserved to win this Test. You have to give India credit."
"That's the goal for us, to win the Test and draw the series. I think there will be a lot of things on the table in the next day or two and I've got some thoughts on what I think. We've got the best group of players available to us at the moment and we'll pick the best combination out of that group that we think will win this last Test."