India must follow Aussie rule, win every match
A loss in the first T20 confirmed for India the first rule of touring Australia --- never underestimate the opposition.
No matter how depleted the Australian squad may be or how much chaos surrounds it, the players will give their all on the field. Many sides touring Australia have failed to observe the rule that should be etched on their boarding pass --- try to win every game, especially those leading to the first Test. The last touring side that obeyed that principle was Andrew Strauss’s England in 2010-11. Their performance in the warm-up matches was an influencing factor in an eventual 3-1 Test series victory.
India need to be vigilant when facing an inexperienced Cricket Australia XI in Sydney as they should be in no doubt that their opponents will be out to win. In the early 1990s, touring teams were regularly ambushed by talented Cricket Academy sides that included players like Ponting and McGrath and it deflated them.
In their lone tour game, India will have to acclimatise quickly to the extra bounce on Australian pitches. The hardest adjustment for any batsman is going from low bouncing pitches.
This leads to one of the biggest challenges when batting in Australia; how to score runs off the backfoot. Players who are adept at playing the horizontal bat shots often have success in Australian conditions.
With Australia looking to temper their on-field behaviour after the ball-tampering debacle, the Indians better believe while this may result in a reduction in verbals, there will be no let-up on the short-pitched deliveries.
This is another reason why Australia should not be under-estimated; they have a top-class attack, headed by three excellent fast bowlers in Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Patrick Cummins. As a result of three suspensions Australia will field a depleted batting line-up, which means their bowlers will be even more determined to limit the opposition’s scoring.
Therefore the Indian top three should be aware that the Australian pacemen will be seeking early scalps in order to get Virat Kohli in while the ball is still shiny. This leads to a selection conundrum. Do India bat the dogged Cheteshwar Pujara at three and hope he’ll wear the quickies down or do they gamble on Rohit Sharma who is technically wellequipped to tackle the shortpitched stuff aggressively?
Kohli showed on the last tour of Australia he’s adept at dealing with short-pitched deliveries but it would be of great benefit to provide him with an ally in this confrontation. India’s other selection conundrum is what to do with their spinners. Considering Australia’s frailty against spin bowling, there’s no doubt that in Adelaide and Sydney especially, India would love to play a pair of tweakers. They would probably also like one of them to be the wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav but his choice is made more difficult by the absence of seam bowling all-rounder Hardik Pandya.
The solutions to these head scratchers may become clearer after the warm-up match but they shouldn’t come at the expense of trying to win the contest.
The other objective to be finalised is the right length for the faster bowlers to claim victims in Australia. In England, the Indian fast bowlers had great success bowling on a fuller length to take advantage of the swing and seam on offer. That will work in Australia while there’s some movement through the air or off the pitch but when that disappears, the trick is to find a length that will still create opportunities.
That’s a lot to be achieved in one warm-up game and hence the failure of most touring sides to upset their hosts. Nevertheless, the best way for India to enter the first Test full of confidence is to do so on the back of a convincing win in the warm-up.