New Delhi: India’s insufficient preparation will put them in a disadvantageous position in the initial stage of their crunch Border-Gavaskar series in Australia, feels former coach John Buchanan.
The five-match Test series begins on November 22 in Perth with India scheduled to play in two-day pink-ball match against the Prime Minister’s XI on November 30 and December 1 ahead of the day-night Test against December 6 at Adelaide.
“Australia is favourite going into the series right at this stage. When you look around world cricket these days — and it has been (the case) for some time — it’s very difficult to tour other countries,” Buchanan said on the sidelines of an event in Mumbai on Thursday, as quoted by PTI.
“(The) travelling teams no longer have that preparation in a country. They don’t play two or three games prior to playing the first Test match to adjust to a country, because nobody wants to tour for that long.
“That makes it very difficult when you go to Perth, when it’s fast and bouncy, for a side that’s coming from, they will have played Bangladesh (and New Zealand) obviously, but Bangladesh at home isn’t it?
“The wickets are going to be completely different, albeit it’s fantastic lead-in that they’re playing some Test cricket, but it’s going to be quite difficult to go to Perth to start with,” the former Australia coach added.
‘India need to bat well’
Though India have won the last four series’ – home and away – but they won’t have any psychological advantage as the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane are unlikely to be in the team for the series, Buchanan said.
“The previous series that India won — important from both, Indian perspective and an Australian perspective — a little bit of the mind games will go into the pre-series,” he said.
“But for all that, those games have passed, those players are gone and the current players we have both in the Australian side and the Indian side, they’re at a stage of their careers where they all want to perform.
“I looked at the ages and India has got some aging players in that side notably Rohit who’s 37 and Kohli is 35, (Ravichandran) Ashwin, if he tours, he’s 37 and you look at the Australian side, there’s only one or two players who are under 30.
“It’ll be very much a battle again between the very good pace bowling attacks of both sides and how well the top order players of both sides can deal with the ball that will bounce, seam and probably swing a little bit more in the day-night game in Adelaide,” he added.
Australia have a strong bowling attack and how Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli’s Indian batting line-up tackle them.
“Australia (has), since losing to India in the last series, the pace bowling attack with (off-spinner Nathan) Lyon, backed up now by Cameron Green or Mitch Marsh, is just a really, really powerful bowling line-up.
“India’s top order, (Yashasvi) Jaiswal, (Rohit) Sharma himself, (Virat) Kohli, possibly Iyer… they’ve got to bat really well to establish totals and then the likes of (Jasprit) Bumrah, (Mohammed) Shami, (Mohammed) Siraj will come into their own,” he said.
India’s five-match Test series against Australia begins on November 22 in Perth Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
