Undeterred by all the noise about Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s slump in form, Australian captain Pat Cummins stated that their job is to keep Indian batters quiet in the upcoming Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT). India are coming into the series after being whitewashed 0-3 at the hands of New Zealand at home. Australia, on the other hand, are hosting Pakistan in a white-ball series.
India’s first Test starts in Perth on November 22 before both the teams go to Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney for the rest of the matches. Cummins, as a skipper of the Australian team, has won both the World Test Championship and ODI World Cup, but never got the chance to beat India in the Border Gavaskar Trophy.
The last time Australia lifted the Border Gavaskar Trophy was in 2014-15 under Michael Clarke. Since then, India have always had the upper hand in BGT, with the most famous being in the 2020-21 series where Ajinkya Rahane’s men made a spectacular comeback after being all out for just 36 in Adelaide.
What made that tour special for India was the fact India won the series without the likes of Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. In fact, that series also gave Rishabh Pant a new identity after his counter-attacking 89 in Brisbane helped India retain the BGT title.
According to Cummins, every player goes through rough patches in their careers. “Hard to know, really. Every player goes through a kind of good form, bad form. If you’re going to have a long Test career, you’re going to have those little patches,” Cummins told HT Digital.
“Our job is obviously to try and keep the Indian batters as quiet as we can so we’ll wait and see. Those two are obviously some of India’s more experienced players, so we’ll see what happens,” added the Australian skipper.
‘Good plans’for Rishabh Pant
Cummins also hinted Australia have special plans for Pant, who was the top run-getter for India against New Zealand. “Yeah, he is someone who always moves the game on pretty quickly, so for some of the players, you have to have some sound plans, too. He’s played well, he had a good series out here in Australia next time. So yeah, we know he can be dangerous when he gets going, so (we’ll) try and have some good plans and hope they come off,” he added. –
However, the major headache for Australia will be to find a perfect replacement for David Warner, who retired from the game at the start of the year. Although Australia did try Cameron Green in place of Warner at the top, the all-rounder is already out of the entire summer due to injury.
“Yeah, potentially. Obviously, Cam Green has been in the team for the last couple of Test matches since Davey retired, but he’s injured, so we’ve got to fill that spot. Everyone else is sorted at the moment, so I expect that to be the only change at this stage,” he added.