A lot of disgruntled Indian fans and critics took to social media to express their disappointment in the team selection thought process which led to India fielding a four-man pace attack in the second Test in Perth. Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri were criticized for opting against fielding a specialist spinner as they opted to go with Umesh Yadav, over Ravindra Jadeja and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar.

"Yes, we could have considered (Ashwin if he was fit). If you see, the rough didn't have much assistance. It was just the pace on the ball that Lyon bowled that he got the wickets that he got. We as a team didn't want to think that we definitely wanted to consider a spinning option on this pitch, especially having had a look at the pitch on day one and how we thought it would play on the first three days, it exactly played out that way. We thought a fast bowler is going to be more productive and more helpful for us as a team," Kohli said in a post-match interview on Tuesday.

Also, in a match where the target reached around the late-200s to the early-300s, the contribution of the lower order was key to sealing a win. However, the Indian tail-enders aggregated just 11 runs over the two innings, which ultimately led to a loss for the visitors.

"When you pick another fast bowler, obviously Ashwin or Jadeja have more ability with the bat, we all know that. It's a very tricky decision to make, what kind of a bowling option you want to go with or you want to think that that guy can contribute with the bat as well. So eventually you come to one decision and we back that decision and went ahead with it. Whether it comes off or not, that's a different thing but we were totally convinced in the team that that was our best combination to go with and the batsmen have to take responsibility. There are lots of variables that can happen during the course of a cricket match but before that, you need to have clarity as to what you want to do and as a side, we were totally clear that this was the combination we wanted to go with," Kohli added.