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Opinion
Australia will need to play well in virtually every facet of the game to beat India in the first Test but the two main factors that hold the key are first-innings runs and Ashton Agar’s effectiveness.
Injuries have forced the Aussies to rethink their strategies with Josh Hazlewood now joining fellow quick Mitchell Starc as being unavailable and it looks like Cameron Green is also going to be sidelined in Nagpur.
With those three out, Matt Renshaw looks like he will get the No.6 spot again and they’ll go with four frontline bowlers – Scott Boland to partner Pat Cummins with the new ball and Agar’s left-armers to provide the variation from Nathan Lyon’s off breaks.
I don’t think Australia can win if Agar doesn’t execute his role to a very high standard.
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From what we saw of him during the rain breaks in the Sydney Test last month, he didn’t have the unerring accuracy needed from a spinner. He was a bit underwhelming at the SCG.
Pat Cummins checks the pitch at Vidarbha Cricket Association Ground in Nagpur. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
I think he’ll bowl pretty well on pitches that are just raging turners but I have two concerns with him.
I didn’t like his control in Sydney – even though it wasn’t turning, he wasn’t bowling four or five balls in the one spot each over to dry up the runs.
When the ball’s turning, your corridor gets bigger and you don’t have to be as accurate. But you’ve got to make sure you’re spinning it to a decent degree.
And also, his lack of red-ball matches the past year or two could be a factor. How’s he going to cope with the heat when he’s needed to bowl second and third spells during a long day in the field?
In some ways, it’s a big opportunity for a guy to nail down the second spinner’s spot and I want him to because I think that Ravindra Jadeja-type left-arm bowling can be important.
And also his batting could be very handy. He’s a very good player in the lower order, another one that could score quickly like Alex Carey.
But he’s in there to get wickets – if he doesn’t bowl well, I’m not sure we can win this Test because with Green injured, you’d be down to three main bowlers to share the workload and get the wickets, so there is a bit of pressure on him.
Travis Head, Ashton Agar and Nathan Lyon of Australia. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
I think he will enjoy seeing the ball spin and hopefully that does give him confidence that he backs himself. There’s no need to worry about what his first-class figures are like in Australia because conditions aren’t here aren’t always conducive to the ball spinning.
If he can consistently get into that Agar Avenue of Apprehension, that’ll give us a chance.
Cummins is a class act, Lyon has had success in India before and Boland’s going to perform – he took bulk wickets at the old MCG pitch that was a flattie up until a couple of years ago so he won’t be overawed with the unhelpful conditions for his seamers.
The batting is the other area where the Aussies need to prove the critics wrong.
In India, every run you get in the first innings is almost worth double.
Things can go downhill very quickly once the momentum starts going against you in India, speaking from painful experience.
If you do lose patience when you’re batting, you do lose the battle and sometimes it can be just one bad session on day three can be the difference from being competitive and the Test being all over.
We can’t just rely on Steve Smith. We’ve got a couple of experienced openers in David Warner and Usman Khawaja – Davey’s struggled in India before and Uzzy didn’t get a game on his two previous tours but they know their own game so well.
Also for Marnus Labuschagne, this is a chance to keep growing his legacy. I think he can get runs over there, he generally looks a pretty good player of spin.
Smith’s new side-on stance, that will probably help him even more in those conditions and then we will find out if Travis Head can succeed on spinning wickets.
If he can score runs at the rate he’s been doing, particularly at Nagpur to start, those runs will be at a premium.
Heady can be that X factor in the middle order. He’s just go to play to his strengths and back himself to stand tall, use the crease and punch on the back foot through the leg side and don’t play too fine.
My gut feeling is they’ll go with Renshaw at six ahead of Peter Handscomb and he’s shown the last summer or two that he’s really improved with his sweeping and taking the spinners on.
Carey will do likewise and he’s pretty adept too with the lap and reverse sweeps so that can help counter-attack the Indian spinners.
(Photo by Daniel Pockett – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
You can’t afford to finish your first innings with a low score whether you bat from day one or you’re up second. The pitches are going to get worse pretty quickly and the ball goes reverse.
The pressure’s not just on Australia, the home side will have a billion-plus fans expecting them to win.
It’s a bit of a transition period for them after the era of Virat Kohli as captain with Ravi Shastri as coach with Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid trying to put their own stamp on the team.
Their batters can go big and between Axar Patel, Ravi Ashwin and Jadeja, they’re world-class in the spin department. And their quicks aren’t too bad either with Mohammad Shami and Mohammed Siraj.
This is the world heavyweight championship, one versus two. It’s almost like it’s going to be a five-match series with four on this tour and then the World Test Championship in England in June.
I’ll be glued to my TV set for every ball because it’s the kind of spectacle that shows why Test cricket is the pinnacle.