Chennai: Australia and hosts India will battle for Border-Gavaskar Trophy with the first five-day Test of the four-match cricket series starting here today.
Spinners hold the edge with most Test pitches in India supporting spin which undermines the pace advantage that the visitors have traditionally enjoyed.
Hosts skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, though highly successful in the short versions - One-Day Internationals and Twenty20s - for he has a lot prove in the five-day format of cricket, both as batsman and captain.
Over the last one year he has presided over embarrassingly one-sided drubbings of 4-0 each when India last toured England in 2011 and Australia last year.
To make it worse for Dhoni, Alistair Cook led from the front, scoring centuries and marshalling his spinners Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann admirably, while leading England to a 2-1 away series win late last year.
Following the miserable run of losing 10 of its last 17 Tests, India’s national cricket selectors were under pressure from irate fans and critics demanding radical changes in the team of non-performing super stars.
Their task was made easy by the retirements of two stalwarts Rahul Dravid and V V S Laxman last year.
So far they have discarded only two other big names - fast bowler Zaheer Khan and opening batsman Gautam Gambhir. However, they have recalled veteran spinner Harbhajan Singh who will be playing his 100th Test match today.
A series win against Australia will do a world of good to their confidence and will restore some pride. On the other hand, another defeat at home threatens to besmirch their legacy and will spell an impending doom for Indian cricket.
Australia were also beaten 0-1 at home by South Africa, but have fared better than India during that period. The visitors too are rebuilding their team with notable retirements of former captain Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey which has given a fragility to their middle order they are not use to.
Captain skipper Michael Clarke will be hoping the new men under his charge replicate the form Australians showed the last time these two teams met. They had thrashed India 4-0 at home riding on the superlative performances of Warner, Clarke and the fast bowlers led by Peter Siddle.
However, conditions in India are completely different. With spin holding sway it will take a super effort from the visitors to outclass the hosts.
This could also be Sachin Tendulkar’s last series against Australia so he will be looking to get some runs which he failed to do so in the last few series’.
It will also be a test for opening batsman Virender Sehwag, who was dropped from the One-Day International (ODI) squad recently. He may have a new partner in either Shikhar Dhawan or Murali Vijay in the absence of Gambhir, who has been dropped for the first two matches against Australia after a string of poor performances.
Squads:
Australia: Ed Cowan, David Warner, Phil Hughes, Shane Watson, Michael Clarke (captain), Matthew Wade, Moises Henriques, James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Peter Siddle, Nathan Lyon. 12th man: Glenn Maxwell.
India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag, Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, R. Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Dinda, Murali Vijay, Ishant Sharma.
AGENCIES
