By Elton Gomes
After a dominating show against the West Indies at home, Virat Kohli and team India will try to repeat their performance when they take on Australia in a T20 match on November 21. In all, India’s tour of Australia includes three T20Is, four Tests, and three ODIs (one day internationals).
Indian vice-captain Rohit Sharma, on Monday, said that the Men in Blue want to leave a mark in Australia. Sharma emphasised that Australia will be dangerous on their home turf. “Australia in Australia will always be dangerous without a doubt. In places like Australia, you want the whole unit to come together, that is our focus,” Sharma said, the Indian Express reported.
Several experts believe that this tour could be India’s best chance at making history in Australia. Aaron Finch’s side will definitely be missing the presence of David Warner and Steve Smith. The duo was banned for a year due to their involvement in ball-tampering. Australia will be determined to make a comeback after a 4-1 series thrashing by South Africa at home.
In recent years, India has done well in Australia in the shorter formats. In 2008, India won the tri-nation CB series. Later, in 2015, India reached the World Cup semi-final without losing a single game. After that, they blanked Australia 3-0 in the T20I series.
India are yet to win a Test series in Australia, and analysts are confident that Virat Kohli and his side could return victorious.
What Kohli said
Indian captain Virat Kohli believes his team has the bowling attack to take all ten wickets every time they step on the field. But Kohli believes that India’s batting group still has room for improvement. Kohli made it clear that India’s batsmen will have to work as a unit rather than focusing on individual performances.
“We are focused on how the batsmen can bat well together and not just individually. Bowlers are in a good space and after a long time we have an attack which is capable of picking 20 wickets,” Kohli said at the pre-departure briefing for the tour of Australia, News18 reported.
“If we look at the England tour, apart from Lord’s, we didn’t get bundled out in a Test. We batted well in patches through the series. But when we don’t bat well as a team, we fall down and lose and mentally it takes a toll on you.”
Keeping in mind Kohli’s “leave India” comment, the India captain has promised to not indulge in trouble. However, Kohli added that the Indian team will retaliate if Australia play dirty.
Australian paceman Pat Cummins has refused to believe Kohli’s statement that he won’t be the one looking for confrontations.
“I think I heard him say in the media the other day he won’t, but I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t,” Cummins told Fairfax Media, India Today reported.
“He’s so competitive, he really thrives on that,” Cummins said. He added, “We’ll hold our ground, we’re going to be competitive and all those things. We wouldn’t treat him differently to any others. I think you’ll see a lot of passion from both sides but nothing super fiery like we saw against India a couple of years ago.”
The teams
India’s squad for the T20Is includes Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Lokesh Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, and K Khaleel Ahmed.
Australia’s squad for the T20Is includes Aaron Finch (c), Alex Carey, Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, D Arcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye, and Adam Zampa.
Elton Gomes is a staff writer at Qrius.
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