*Official* Australia in India 2023

[Spark]

There are also batsmen who genuinely have a better chance of pulling off an attacking stroke than a defensive one. Its really all about shot selection, the ability to play percentages as far as your attacking strokes go and then defending when you get balls you can't attack, hopefully with lesser fielders around you coz you have already got them to spread the field a bit. And of course, getting singles with the boundary riders back. It is not a bad philosophy at all.

Of course, it comes down to individuals as we see even with England, Foakes is not exactly looking to bat at a 100 SR, or even Crawley is not trying to smash across the line every other ball. Individuals should still work out their best method but as an overall approach and attitude, it has its benefits IMO.

Head is a very good example. I think Khawaja on the other hand, tends to play more defensively and him playing too many shots will not work out for him. I would say he was pretty lucky even in the first innings here. Once you got the field spread out, then you can get to play at the tempo that suits you, I guess.

I think the thing that annoys me most is that a lot of what happened yesterday was obviously premeditated which is just... not how you should play in Test cricket, regardless of whether you're attacking or defending. You should play each ball on its own merits, regardless of your own personal scheme for assessing those merits, and in your own way. I still don't understand what Smith was trying to achieve with his shot when it's not his shot, especially after Kohli had clearly demonstrated that you can succeed on that pitch simply by hitting anything pitched up through the line of the ball and playing back and to the legside to anything else off the back foot. If there's one thing you can trust Steve Smith to do, it's playing off the back foot into the legside. But instead he decides to premeditate a massive sweep off middle stump and misses the ball by a foot.

I really wonder how many times he played that shot in 2017 when he got three hundreds. It can't have been many. Certainly not when he wasn't in full slog mode.

The side I posted would be their best shot, IMO. Khawaja, Head, Labu, Smith, Handscomb, Green, Carey, Starc, Cummins, Murphy, Lyon.

Like I said earlier the selection is honestly a red herring. The players, individually, are actually good enough in terms of skill. The mindset is the problem.

 

[honestbharani]

With the current Indian top order, every team has a chance to win in India.

Yeah we make up for the lack of tail by batting them 2-5.

 

[honestbharani]

I think the thing that annoys me most is that a lot of what happened yesterday was obviously premeditated which is just... not how you should play in Test cricket, regardless of whether you're attacking or defending. You should play each ball on its own merits, regardless of your own personal scheme for assessing those merits, and in your own way. I still don't understand what Smith was trying to achieve with his shot when it's not his shot, especially after Kohli had clearly demonstrated that you can succeed on that pitch simply by hitting anything pitched up through the line of the ball and playing back and to the legside to anything else off the back foot. If there's one thing you can trust Steve Smith to do, it's playing off the back foot into the legside. But instead he decides to premeditate a massive sweep off middle stump and misses the ball by a foot.

I really wonder how many times he played that shot in 2017 when he got three hundreds. It can't have been many.



Like I said earlier the selection is honestly a red herring. The players, individually, are actually good enough in terms of skill. The mindset is the problem.

Yeah, your media is not helping them (mostly Murdoch I believe). And it seems these guys are listening or moving closely to those media folks as well. They may well have let themselves be spooked into believing they are playing on bunsens when they have just had to play on typical Indian turners so far, which are far from impossible to bat on.

And while selection may not be a big issue and it is just 1 or 2 slots, picking the right ones for those slots could be just as important. I feel the balance of the 3 seamers and 3 offies (incl. Head coz for some reason, they wanna) would let Cummins work with an attack he is more comfortable with.

 

[Spark]

Yeah, your media is not helping them (mostly Murdoch I believe). And it seems these guys are listening or moving closely to those media folks as well. They may well have let themselves be spooked into believing they are playing on bunsens when they have just had to play on typical Indian turners so far, which are far from impossible to bat on.

They've honestly been two entirely reasonable pitches which these batsmen should back themselves to cobble 300 on. Most of the demons are entirely self-imposed.

And yeah Fox Cricket in particular has been a millstone around the necks of the team in the last few weeks. They've made everything worse with their incendiary reporting around the pitches and then laying into the team when they fold, as if that's anything new in India.

 

[Prince EWS]

The side I posted would be their best shot, IMO. Khawaja, Head, Labu, Smith, Handscomb, Green, Carey, Starc, Cummins, Murphy, Lyon.

Cummins is out now.

 

[Spark]

Cummins is out now.

He'll be back in time for the third game apparently

 

[honestbharani]

If Cummins has a family emergency, think it might be best for him and everyone involved that he stays back in Aus. He wont be in a great mindset to come back and play, and if Hazlewood is fit, it might actually be a blessing in disguise for the team as far as their chances in this series goes.

Of course, I hope somehow his emergency situation sorts itself out. Good luck to him and his family.

 

[Sunil1z]

Still can’t believe the test is over . Didn’t Australia see India struggling to chase 140 against Bangladesh? All Australia needed was a couple of their players scoring 50 and lead would be around 220 which was defendable on this pitch.

Did all of them got spooked or had a stage fright ?

 

[Son Of Coco]

T

India have also comprehensively beaten decent teams. But I haven't seen Australia destroy a no.1 team of such quality as India has done. This is peak home invincibility.

India have always been hard to beat at home. Even when they were rubbish overseas. When they're actually half-decent now, they're going to be even harder to beat at home.

 

[Son Of Coco]

You've mentioned the Khawaja-Marnus combine away from home several times but I think you can safely dismiss away exploits elsewhere when it comes to touring India. To succeed here requires an altogether different set of technical and mental skills. The only guy with proven pedigree here is Smith and even he evidently is not the same robot of yesteryear.

Yeah, away in India is about as away as you can get for most teams. The comparison between Australia and South Africa back in the day seemingly ignores the fact the wickets in both countries are very similar.

 

[Victor Ian]

Its really starting to come across as just copium at this point. I think there was a Bazball thread where I would like to address this in detail but Bazball is not mindless slogging as the lazy ones wanna portray it. To me, in essence, it is just a mindset and approach thing where the batsmen are looking to see if they can score first, and if they can't, then they defend. And with modern batsmen being brought up on a diet of T20 batting, it makes sense. Maybe by default they get into better positions to play the ball when they are looking to hit it.

One of my pet peeves about batting in test cricket has always been the fact that batsmen defend balls they can easily score off, just because muh test cricket. England still defend and play out good bowling when it cant be attacked. You are right, their real test will come when they lose more than 1 game or lose a series coz playing Bazball, they will lose games they could draw for sure. They are also winning games they could draw and maybe winning games they would lose. That is when that commitment will be tested and we will have to see if they have the strength of character to see it through that sort of period and still play like this.

But given how modern batsmen are being raised, to me at least, this approach has as much chance of success as any going around in world cricket as far as test matches go.

Yeah, Bazball is just Australian Intent from the good years - except that bazball has realised you can have more intent than Australia settled for and create more pressure.

 

[Victor Ian]

T
India have always been hard to beat at home. Even when they were rubbish overseas. When they're actually half-decent now, they're going to be even harder to beat at home.

Yeah - I'd say their home stats since 1990 would make everyone else look laughable. They are much better recently than Australia in their heyday, as we would lose test without dropping a series, but India lose much less.

 

[Senile Sentry]

India played pretty poorly this game overall. The first day's bowling efforts were very ordinary and the second day's batting in the first session was much the same.

That's some stereotypical Indian dad stuff! For me the only time Indian bowlers were.below par was the 2nd day evening. Can't blame them, after getting the bad side of toss, they still managed to bowl out Aus for a less than par score. Then before they could get some rest, had to be out there to play the lower order rescue act. And then immediately get on with the second bowling act.

While someone like KL Rahul gets to spend 4-5 hours with his feet up in the cool of dressing room.

 

[Senile Sentry]

India played a massively inferior version of this England team in 2021 and still dropped a test

India too played a massively inferior version of itself.

Shabaz Nadeem of all spinners.

 

[Ray.]

Oh ye of short memory- England did win last time they were in India, Root double century.

ENG vs IND, England tour of India 2020/21, 1st Test at Chennai, February 05 - 09, 2021 - Full Scorecard

Get cricket scorecard of 1st Test, ENG vs IND, England tour of India 2020/21 at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai dated February 05 - 09, 2021.

www.espncricinfo.com

I think you didn’t follow rest of the series, where they got totally smashed.

 

[The_CricketUmpire]

The bowling wasn't and isn't the issue. The batting has been. And I clearly remember that during Australia's home series people were talking up Australia's batting and I was like no. Their batting looks good on paper but outside Australia (except for Smith) it's questionable. And even now that Smith is being dominated, we see how truly woeful they can be.

There has been issues with Australia's batting for years.

 

[Senile Sentry]

India is a totally different and inferior team without Jadeja, esp when it retains its rubbish top order.

They lost in SA primarily due to not having Jadeja. The Bangladesh test was also close because of the same reason.

 

[PaulLennon]

India is a totally different and inferior team without Jadeja, esp when it retains its rubbish top order.

They lost in SA primarily due to not having Jadeja. The Bangladesh test was also close because of the same reason.

No Jadeja, no Rohit. Also Siraj got injured in test 2 and Umesh is not really food in SENA.

Bangladesh test didnt also have shami plus I believe Shakib Miraz Taijul are a better spin attack in Asia compared to Lyon and company.

 

[Sunil1z]

Next Test is at a venue where Kohli and Mayank have scored double century in 2 different matches . Ashwin has a good record here .

 

[honestbharani]

Next Test is at a venue where Kohli and Mayank have scored double century in 2 different matches . Ashwin has a good record here .

Forgot we played BD here lol