Sutherland backs Jhulan Goswami’s experience with new ball in D/N Test “spectacle”

The all-rounder said the Australians never underestimated the Indians and the latter proved that it during the third ODI.

While the pink-ball experience will be a new one for Goswami, India will certainly bank on her experience to deliver the goods in the Test starting Thursday.

Australian all-rounder Annabel Sutherland believed that Indian pacer Jhulan Goswami, who claimed three wickets and sealed the visitor's win with the bat in the third One-Day International (ODI) on Sunday, could be a force to reckon with in the upcoming pink-ball Test, starting September 30.

“Yesterday we saw the opening bowlers for the Indians, Jhulan Goswami, in particular. Her experience with the new ball and how much she was getting the ball to move, challenging both sides of the bat. It is an exciting challenge because our fast bowlers lineup pretty nicely with theirs as well. So, it is going to be interesting to see how the pink ball goes under the lights with both fast bowling attacks,” she said.

Adding that the landmark Test will be an “awesome spectacle”, the all-rounder said the Australians never underestimated the Indians and the latter proved that it during the third ODI.

While Australia has had a taste of day/night Test cricket when it played England under lights in 2017 at Sydney, this will be India women’s first tryst with the pink ball in the multi-day format.

As a preparation for the new challenge, the Women in Blue had undergone a training camp with the pink ball in Bengaluru before departing for the multi-format series Down Under.

The need for more Tests

About Australia’s approach to gearing up for the Test, Sutherland said, “We’ve trained a couple of times with the pink ball. Obviously both sides haven’t played a lot of Test match cricket. But I think it is not all that different to the one-day cricket format, so we’re not looking to change too much. All of it comes down to a little bit more patience and probably more time to play out your plans. That’s one thing we really pride ourselves on.”

With both sides having played little Test cricket of late –Australia last played one more than two years ago in July 2019 while India returned to playing the format in July this year after a gap of almost seven years—Sutherland said they would love to play more of it.

“Having this Test match included in the series against India is another step towards improving the game. It is a step at a time but at the moment all the girls are just keen to play any cricket they can in any format. Test match cricket is something all the girls would love to be playing more of but at the same time T20 and one-day cricket is very similar in terms of standards,” Sutherland, who is yet to make her Test debut, said.

The 19-year-old sounded excited about the prospect of Indian players playing in the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) which begins on October 14 and said that they would add to the rising standards of the league.

Sydney Thunder signed opener Smriti Mandhana and all-rounder Deepti Sharma on Sunday, while Sydney Sixers drafted Shafali Verma and spinner Radha Yadav into its squad for the upcoming season.