Toby Marshall
The cricketing world is on its brink as the Aussies prepare a master plan to beat India on the troublesome conditions presented by Indian pitches. India has recently faced their neighbouring nation Bangladesh in the 5-day battle of supremacy. India won the series in a whitewash with ease as the visitors had trouble finding their hold on the ground against the Indian bowlers.
The batters of the Indian side did help them squander this hurdle as Sherayas Iyer and Cheteshwar Arvind Pujara both played some fine knocks to help their team. But the most clinical part of the Indian attack was their front-line spinners who sailed them to glorious victories whilst collapsing the Bangladeshi batting unit. Kuldeep Yadav was superb in the first test as his wickets tally helped his team to get the win.
Pujara got the player of the series award for his amazing showcase of batting. But the player that stood out the most was Ravichandran Ashwin, whose bowling and batting was a critical addition to the contributions to India’s win. Ravichandran Ashwin played a beautiful knock that didn’t reach an individual milestone but it surely paved the way for the series win for his home country.
The dynamic action of bowling by Ashwin combined with the favourable Indian pitches becomes an uncanny combo that has made a lot of nations fall prey to his wickets. However, the Aussies’ management was lurking in the shadows and had kept a close eye on key aspects of the Indian side. India later played Sri Lanka in a One Day International series, which they won formidably with 3 wins in the bag.
India has also played an ODI series and T20 series against the Kiwis; both of which they won with comfort. But the main concern for the Aussies was the Tests. The Aussies’ side travelled to India, and instead of reaching the match location “Nagandhru” they took a detour to Bengaluru. The Aussies want to try themselves out before facing the deadly Indian spin attack and they have refused to play any practice matches for their preparations.
For this, they reached Bengaluru and called on the duties of what many may call Ravichandran Ashwin’s doppelganger. Mahesh Pithiya, who grew up being called “Ashwin”, was a young boy from a poor background. He didn’t have a TV to observe Ashwin in his early years. Though he had coincidently already developed a bowling action similar to Ravichandran Ashwin.
The boy first saw Ashwin when he was 13 years and immediately called upon him as his hero. This is a massive opportunity for the young boy who recently made his debut in December for Baroda. The young mind will be learning from the likes of Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne as he will be bowling to them in the nets. Other than Ashwin, Axar Patel, and Ravindra Jadeja are the other two spinners that the Aussies must be looking at right now. Their bowling coach, the veteran Daniel Vettori and fellow spinner Ashton Agar are helping the Aussies to get familiar with the Indian conditions.
In the world of Cricket, home conditions do a lot better than just fan support. Pitch conditions for batters vary across the globe. We have green surfaces in England with overcast conditions that can be a nightmare for batters when facing a good seamer. Pacers favour Australian conditions as it offers them more pace and bounce that can trouble the batters. The Asian conditions however have always been the home of the spinners. Spinners rule over batters in this part of the world, so a visit for the Englishmen, Kiwis, Proteas, Caribbean, or the Aussies becomes a problem for their batters, and any plan to beat India has usually failed.. The Asian sides have developed a tremendous amount of spin attackers that have been unplayable and dominant over the years. The Indian side has always had good spinners in their arsenal and this time is no different as the Aussies try to battle them out in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
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