India have been enjoying a great time in international cricket over the last year or so, winning across all formats and winning almost every series they’ve played, with one of their rare losses coming in the Champions Trophy final against Pakistan.
India recently toured Sri Lanka. While Sri Lanka may not have been the toughest opposition, India can’t be even 2% complacent now as they face the stiffer challenge of taking on Australia. Even though India have the home advantage, Australia is a world class team and wins never come easy against them.
While the hosts are the #1 ranked test team, they are #3 on the ODI rankings, with Australia at #2. Both teams share the same rating of 117 but Australia have slightly more points. However, if any of the teams win this ODI series 4-1 or better, they will jump to the #1 rank, so both have a lot of motivation to do well in this series.
Australia tour of India: 5 ODIs and 3 T20Is between 17th September and 13th October 2017.
Recent results:
On their tour of Sri Lanka, India completely dominated the hosts, winning the tests 3-0, winning the ODIs 5-0 and even winning the only T20I. Thus, they became the first team ever to complete a ‘tourwash‘ abroad in a 9-match tour.
Australia on the other hand, have flown in from Bangladesh where they played a grinding series of 2 tests and ultimately drew the series 1-1. However, they had to work hard for every run and every wicket, so they have a lot of practice coming into this series.
Earlier this year, Australia toured India for 4 tests and after winning the 1st test, they lost the hard-fought series 1-2. With so much match practice in the sub-continent and also many Aussies playing in the IPL, I wouldn’t imagine they will take much time to settle down here.
Squads:
India have opted to go in with newer, younger faces for this home series. Manish Pandey & KL Rahul have got yet another go, while Yuvraj Singh was dropped. Shikhar Dhawan was picked but opted out of the first 3 ODIs to be with his ill wife, so Rahane will open the innings with Rohit.
They have an even more inexperienced bowling attack, going in with Yuzvendra Chahal & Kuldeep Yadav over the experienced duo of Jadeja-Ashwin. However, all-rounder Axar Patel’s injury means Jadeja was called back to the squad.
A calf issue will keep Aaron Finch out of atleast a couple of games, which means Travis Head will be a part of the line-up but will he open with Warner? Warner was short of runs but scored two centuries in Bangladesh recently. They are playing a number of all-rounders and that will be a big advantage.
Update: Steve Smith announces that Hilton Cartwright will make his ODI debut.
Talking about the pitch, the average 1st innings score here is 264 but that will surely not be enough as the average 1st innings score between India and Australia ODIs since 2013 is 321. Rohit Sharma mentioned that this is a good batting track so if I batted first and scored less than 330, I wouldn’t be too confident.
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