India vs Australia 2018/2019 Second Test (Perth) Review

As expected India lost the Perth test.
But I thought India gave credible performance to be in match despite doing badly on the first day of the match.

I thought now a days, the teams win the match once they win the toss, and mostly bat first. Specially when the teams who play away.
Recent examples.
England in SL won all the matches by winning the toss and batting first. I am sure the result of the series would have been different had SL won the toss and batted first in those matches.

In Pakistan vs NZ series, NZ won the matches where they batted first and Pak won when they batted first.

In Australia, India won the first test after batting first and Aussie won after batting first in Perth test.

Even in the England vs India series, I am sure the result would have been different if India had batted first in most of those matches (except the Lords test).


Now coming to the end of Perth test, let us summarize India performance so far.

• There is lot of blame from all former greats on the team selection, that India decided not to go with a spinner
• On this I feel Kohli was right.  Jadeja would not have made any difference in the bowling
• Also as Ian Chappel said, India could not have selected a bowler just because he better - either in case of Bhuvi or Jadeja
• So it is India's problem that tailendars do not bat as well as other teams, and this is known problem for long and India has not worked on it
• KL Rahul should be dropped from India team straight away and not be included in any Indian team for 1 year. He need to sort out his mental problem before he is selected for India team again
• Bumrah is highly overrated bowler. He bowls too short when he knows his wicket taking balls are the one which hit the wicket and more of good length or full length balls
• Hanuma Vihari definitely is better bet than Rohit Sharma for number 6 slot

Now off to Melbourne, and let us await for India bounce back there.

India vs Australia 2018/2019 First Test (Adelaide) Review

India has won the first test by 31 runs.

So my pre-series prediction of Australia winning this series 4-0 has been proved wrong in the first test itself. I am happy about it :)

It was a very close match - with India winning due to better batting from one of their top order batsmen in first innings and 2 top order batsmen in the second innings.

Australia lost because there was only one fifty from their top order batsmen in either of the innings and that made the difference. This was despite better performance from Australia tail compared to India, and better spin bowling compared to India.

In first innings the India top order crumbled and then rescued by Pujara and in the second innings all the top order batsmen except Rohit Sharma applied themselves very well, but tail crumbled resulting in the match being lot closer than it was.

Australia bowling first innings was good, and in second innings I think Michell Starc must be little disappointed with his performance.

Indian bowling in the first innings was good with all 4 front-line bowlers bowling well, but in second innings, Ishant Sharma disappointed with his frequently overstepping the crease which costed India couple of wickets, and Ashwin could not break in on fifth day pitch.

So overall both sides have problem to sort out heading into the rest of the series.

Next test is in Perth in a new ground (not the famous bouncy WACA), but even in the new ground it is expected to be lot more bouncy than other pitches in Australia.

So Australia has lot better chance to level the series in Perth Test starting from Friday.

India vs Australia Test Series 2018/2019 Preview

So the much awaited Test Series of the 2018 is here. Same expectation was there for India vs England series too. But due to India batting failures we lost the series 4-1. It was definitely much closer series and if Indian batting had done little bit well and India had bowled out England lower order early, the scoreline would have been reverse. Only test where England comprehensively won was in Lords. There again, they had better of weather conditions, where when England batted it was completely a Sunny day and when India batter it was mostly cloudy. So all in all India lost a series which it should have won.

Now coming to the India vs Australia series.

Due to absence of Smith and Warner, I think batting of both side can be considered equal with slight edge to Australia because of home conditions.

Let us look at each area and see which side has greater strength in particular area.

Openers
Aus has stronger presence in this because of form Khwaja, and KL Rahul is in poor form, Shaw is inured and M Vijay is coming back

Middle order
Probably due to V Kohli presence Indian middle order can be considered little stronger, but then due to poor form of other players, It gets balanced out

Lower Middle order / Tailenders
Definitely Aus is stronger in this with Paine, Cummins, Starc vs Pant, Ashwin and Co

Wicket keeping
Paine is much better Wicket keeper than Pant and also better batsmen

Fast Bowlers
On any given day Starc, Hazelwood, Cummins are much better bowlers than I Sharma, Bumrah and Shami. Specially Shami being erratic on a given day.
Aus has bowlers in Hazelwood and Cummins to give them control and Starc to attack

Spinners
Here Nathan Lyon wins hands down against M Ashwin
Nathan Lyon is very good attacking offspinner who takes wickets as well as contain. It is difficult to attack again Lyon due to the line and length bowls.

Ashwin on foreign conditions is a very erratic bowler and cannot be relied to either take wickets and hold one side. That will be the biggest difference for Aus to do well in this series.

So my prediction is Aus winning this series 4-0