Why Australia will struggle on their upcoming tour of India

The last time India played a series against Australia, there was plenty of hype as the visitors back then were trying to avenge a series loss to England and had plenty to prove when they toured Down Under. Twelve months months on, not much has changed. An England series defeat looms large in the backdrop and again there is plenty to prove for a country that has seen a downward spiral since reaching the zenith on 2nd of April, 2011.

Australia, on the other hand, are left with a huge void created by the retirements of Mike Hussey and Ricky Ponting in the summer, but under the astute leadership of Michael Clarke and Mickey Arthur, promise to build another team which will try to compete against the likes of England and South Africa for the numero uno status in Test cricket. Their best of sides have always struggled on a tour of India. Here’s my two cents on why that tradition will continue.

Poor spin options and Perma-crock pacers:

A country which once produced Shane Keith Warne, now has spinners of the calibre of Lyon, Holland, Beer, Doherty and O’Keefe. Australia may never see a genius like Warne, he was a once in a generation bowler. The current crop of spinners are not going to give any sub-continent batsmen a sleepless night. And like most of the batsman, none of them will have the experience of playing a Test match in India. Lyon will be a definite starter and as England learnt after the Ahmedabad Test, it would require consistent pressure from two quality spinners to extirpate the Indian batsmen. Holland would have likely been the second spinner but a shoulder re-construction, his second in one year just before the South Africa series, means that he is not expected to be fit for the Indian tour. Beer has been on fringes for a long time now. He played the Port of Spain Test against West Indies (infact Clarke even opened the bowling with him) but hasn’t played a Test since then. In the recently concluded England series, much of the talk revolved around Dhoni wanting rank turners. India were undone by the brilliance of Monty and Swann in Mumbai and Kolkata but Australia’s No.1 spinner is nowhere near the class of the English duo. With similar wickets expected again, Lyon will get a lot of purchase from the wickets here, but whether he is good enough to run through the Indian batting lineup, remains to be seen.

There will be a lot of pressure on the pace attack with the bulk of the bowling expected to be done by them. Australia probably have the richest pool of fast bowlers right now in world cricket. But the less said about their injuries, the better. This summer alone they have played close to 12 fast bowlers (all formats included). Given the rigours of international cricket now, the depth in fast bowling should augur well for any nation but the amount of injuries the likes of Pat Cummins at the tender age of 19 have suffered, leaves a lot of question marks on the management of these quicks by the board. Their rotation policy has created quite a lot of stir especially after Starc was ‘rested’ for the Boxing Day Test, days after he had won them the Test match at the Bellerive Oval against Sri Lanka.

Shane Warne on Twitter: ‘Absolute rubbish selections, rotations, resting & farcical decisions on matches.. Dudding the public & to many excuses.. Wake up CA.. Can CA please put current cricket people in charge to run the game, select teams not ex rugby or any other sports please, seriously!!!’

It would be interesting to see whether Australia play the 3 quicks along with Lyon or go in with a 2-2 combination. Siddle and Starc look the most dangerous amongst all the pacers, the former is the go-to man for Australia in Tests and can bowl long spells and hold one end up while Starc can be lethal with the old ball and can get it to move both ways at more than 85 mph. Johnson has the experience of playing in India and is no mug with the bat either. But wickets at Chennai, Delhi and Kanpur might not exactly suit his ‘hitting the deck hard’ kind of bowling. Given the series is played in late February and goes well into March, when the summer starts to set in, it will require a super human effort from the quicks to get majority of the 20 Indian wickets.

Inexperienced batting lineup and an erratic keeper:

Cowan, Warner, Watson, Hughes, Clarke, Khawaja and Wade will in all likelihood be the 7 batsmen that will be picked on February 22nd. Leaving Clarke and the injury prone Watson aside, none of them have the experience of playing a Test match in India. Fielding a fledgling batting line up will be a very risky proposition for any visiting team. As Cook recently showed, it is vital to grind out innings after innings to be have a successful series in India. The temperament to grind out such innings is a big question mark for some of the senior players like Watson and Warner. Barring Mohali (the only wicket that might suit Australia), the other 3 venues will be slow and low. It would almost require a Cook-esque effort from one of the top 4 batsmen, which in itself will be a towering task to emulate.

Matthew Wade has scored two top-notch centuries till date and both of them resulted in Australia winning the Test match after they found themselves in a difficult position (the hundred in Dominica was the only century scored by any batsman from either team in the entire series). He probably is the best batsman-keeper in the country. But it’s his credentials behind the wicket which have come under the scanner of late. Ian Healy minced no words in attacking him publicly for some of the dropped catches. He missed quite a few chances this summer (most of them created by Lyon). It is hard to forget him dropping Faf Du Plessis on the last day in the Adelaide Test which eventually cost them the series. Australia can hardly afford that. There have been suggestions to pick Wade purely as a batsman and let one of Haddin, Paine and Hartley (who, purely as a keeper, is rated the best in the country) a chance to don the gloves behind the stumps. Paine, after injuring his right index finger in a T20 game in 2011, has made a comeback to the Sheffield Shield after a long lay-off. His case is made stronger by the fact that he was good with the bat in India in 2010 where he scored a 92 in Mohali and he backed that up with a 59 in the second Test in Bangalore. There are strong murmurs that the Tasmanian captain has dislodged Haddin as the No.2 in the pecking order.

The No.6 Conundrum:

With the retirement of Mike Hussey (which came as a surprise to many given that there are back to back Ashes series’ this year) after the Sydney Test against Sri Lanka, Australia have arguably lost their best player of spin. Although Clarke got all the plaudits (deservedly so) for a stunning 2012, Hussey himself scored plenty of runs last year. He was immense last time Australia toured a sub-continent, scoring two tons in three Tests and leading Australia to a series win in Sri Lanka in 2011. His likely replacement will be either Khawaja or Maxwell. The latter’s selection in the 13-man squad for the Sydney Test against Sri Lanka earlier this year was a clear indication of the thought process of Inverarity and co. for the tour of India. Would he be preferred ahead of Khawaja primarily because of his off-spin bowling, will have to be seen. Although he did reasonably well in UAE in an ODI last year against Pakistan, his batting is largely untested against quality spin. Khawaja has been in stunning form in the Shield this season. He is amongst the top 3 run getters. Australia need to be looking at deft batsmen like him rather than bits and pieces cricketers like Maxwell to fill the big boots of Hussey. Hopefully they will avoid making the same mistake they did in the early part of the 2008 series, where Cameron White was picked for a similar role and played as the lone spinner.

On paper, India definitely start as the over-whelming favourites but don’t expect Australia to be steamrolled. They still do have arguably the best batsman in world cricket right now leading them. When fit, they possess a supremely talented pace attack and a brilliant all-rounder in Watson whose exploits with the Rajasthan Royals in the previous editions of the IPL might just prove to be very handy. The team is inexperienced in these conditions but they do tick a lot of boxes. Whether they are the right boxes to replicate the famous 2004 win is the big question mark.