Former all-rounder Shane Watson believes India’s pace attack has what it takes to challenge Australia in their own conditions, provided they are rotated effectively during the grueling tour. With India already having secured two series victories down under, this five-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy, starting in Perth on November 22, promises to be quite interesting.
“India’s pace attack will be where they predominantly win that series. They’ve got the firepower to be able to do it, but to be able to do it five Test matches in a row in Australia, they’ll have to rotate them as well,” Watson stated during the launch of the International Masters League.
He conceded the brilliance of bowlers Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja but said, “There’s no doubt, although Ashwin, of course, is a completely ridiculous skilled bowler in all conditions, same with Jadeja, but the support won’t be there as regular as it is in other parts of the world.” Watson pointed out that the real test will lie in testing their efficacy on Australian conditions while saying, “They’ll still be effective, but how effective they’ll be—that’ll be the test and that’ll be the challenge for the Aussie batters.”
On Cheteshwar Pujara’s unavailability, Watson was of the opinion that it would not really matter for India since, “When you talk about Pujara is that he just doesn’t make a mistake. Whereas you’ve seen so many of these incredible batters for India, top-order batters like Jaiswal, he has scored runs very quickly, but he hasn’t made a mistake.”
He said that if that aggressive batsmen come out and put pressure on Australian bowlers, they can do same thing like Pujara was able to: “If those type of batters do come out to Australia and play aggressively, put the bad balls away and put the pressure on the Aussie bowlers, then they can still have the same effect and they keep the game moving as well.”
But Watson opined that with the quality batting line-up India has with them, they can gain advantages by keeping pressure but simultaneously by ridding themselves of errors: “With the calibre of batters that India have got and the skill they’ve got, there’s no reason why they can’t combine that, putting pressure on the bowlers, score quickly but also not make mistakes,” he added.
He added, “I think Australia needs to be at their very best in order to beat India, but I reckon that India definitely had the team that has got the firepower and would give Australia a huge challenge at home. The last time they met in Australia, India played very, very well. They will have their confidence from that last tour.” Watson then reiterates that Australia needs to rise to their best because with India also possessing great batting and bowling arsenal, such an effort would surely make it a winner for the series.
