 After a historic Test series in which India came out victories, The bitter rivals face off at The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi on Sunday. The atmosphere
would be electrifying as people would fly in to support India. The Test series
was exciting, often balance shifting and thrilling. One dayers might not be
the same affair as both the teams seem to give more importance to Test cricket.
Click for Live Score Card of India vs Australia India are full of confidence after whitewashing Australia in Tests,
In fact so confident that they are resting seven main players for ODI series.
The stars of Tests Sahcin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, and Pragyan
Ojha have been given rest, while the injured Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir
and Ishant Sharma have not been picked.
Yuvraj Singh is back in the limited overs squad while Shikhar Dhawan
might get a chance to debut for India. It would be interesting to see how MS
Dhoni, the Indian captain would lead and manage his side in absence of several
key players.
It may seem that India are not giving importance to the ODI series, or the decision
to rest players might have come in the awakening of comments from many former
players that too much cricket is being played. The track at Kochi is normally
batsmen supporting. The bounce is even and the ball comes onto bat.
Indian weakened seamers Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel and
Vinay Kumar are by no means Taits, Steyns or Guls. It seems they might struggle
throughout the series. It would be exciting to see this young Indian team take
on Australia.
India would look to shake off a disappointing one series in Sri-Lanka, where
they won only two of their last five matches.
Australia are clearly a struggling side in all formats of the game. They lost
ODI series in England, They lost T20 series to Pakistan, then drew the Test
series and now have been outclasses and outsmarted by India in two Tests.
Michael Clarke, their ODI captain has been criticized by former captain Ian Chappell. The World Cup which has been won by Australia for the last three
times looks difficult to win this time around. Australia would go into Sunday's
game at Kochi without rested Mitchell Johnson Ricky Ponting and Shane
Watson. Shane Watson has been a star for Australia since Ashes 2009. Australia
would hope they won't miss him. Australia would take comfort in their formidable
batting line up. Bowling is a weak point for both teams.
Australia are in a declining form and have won only two of their last five one
day games.
|
