IND vs AUS: The first match of the four-match Test series will start on Thursday, February 9, at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur.
Image Credit source: TV9 Graphics
It was 13 months ago, when the ‘Battle of the Ashes’ was going on from Brisbane to Melbourne and Hobart and the hosts met the guests with an unforgettable fate. The same host has now reached another land as a guest, where he now has to fight a battle of prestige. This fight is not going to be as easy as the battle of ashes and it is going to start from Thursday 9th February in Nagpur. The Indian team, captained by Rohit Sharma, will look to retain its reign at home, in which Australia will be the world’s number one Test team in front of it.
After winning the first Ashes in England, then going to Pakistan, drawing in Sri Lanka and then beating West Indies and South Africa very easily, the Australian team has come to India for their toughest Test since Pat Cummins took over as captain. The ground on which he has won only 1 Test in the last 18 years, forget the series. In such a situation, it is a battle of credibility for him, which Cummins himself and his vice-captain Steve Smith have told as important as Ashes.
Credibility question for Rohit as well
Not only Australia, the fight for credibility is also for India. Especially for captain Rohit Sharma, who will go through his biggest test after taking over the Test captaincy. Rohit has played only two Tests since becoming the captain, which were against Sri Lanka a year ago. Since then, he has not come down to play in Test cricket. In such a situation, not only his captaincy but also his batting will be tested in the biggest, most important and last Test series of the straight season.
Like every time, even before the start of the series, discussions, debates and allegations about the pitch have started from the Australian media and former cricketers. The pitch at Nagpur’s Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium is going to be helpful to the spinners, there is no doubt about it. Australia is also assuming that the pitch will help left-arm spinners as one part has been kept dry. In such a situation, there is no doubt that both the teams will field at least three spinners in the playing XI.
test of indian batting
It is going to be very challenging for the Australian batsmen, everyone knows this but the real eyes are on the Indian batsmen. Even though the match is being held in India, India’s top batsmen have also had to face trouble against spinners in recent times. Especially Virat Kohli and Cheteshwar Pujara will be watching how they will face Nathan Lyon and Ashton Agar or other spinners.
When the Australian team came to India last time, Virat could score only 46 runs. In Kohli’s mind, he will not only have a problem, but also he will have to achieve his peak again in Test cricket.
Indian batsmen practiced the sweep shot a lot in the 4-day camp in Nagpur but whether they will use it in the match or not remains to be seen.
Australia’s ‘Mission Badla’
Talking about Australia, it is not only the target of ending India’s wait of 18 years, but also the challenge of equalizing the account of two consecutive defeats at home. Australia won their last Test series in 2004 on the tour of India. Since then, he had won only one Test on the last tour of 2017. After this, India lost the series at home in 2018-19 and 2020-21. Australia has to take revenge for all this.
For this, he will once again expect the best performance from Steve Smith, who scored 499 runs on the last tour of India. Smith himself has said that he would like to repeat the 2017 form again.
In such a situation, Smith will have to stand firm in front of the possible spin trio of Ravichandran Ashwin, Akshar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja. If Smith is in good form, then it will not be easy for the Indian spinners to overcome him. By the way, Indian spinners have a good chance of hunting Australia’s left-handed batsmen, who are going to be seen a lot in the Australian line-up.
India-Australia squad
India : Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, KS Bharat (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat Ishan Kishan.
Australia : Pat Cummins (captain), David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Alex Carey, Matt Renshaw, Peter Handscomb, Nathan Lyon, Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Lance Maurice, Mitchell Swepson, Todd Murphy.
