The Border-Gavaskar Trophy may still be a couple of months away, but John Buchanan considers Australia the favourite for the five-match Test series.
Even though India emerged victorious in the previous two-Test series Down Under - in 2018-19 and 2020-21 - the former Australian coach believes it will be quite a challenge for the touring team to adjust to the conditions initially, without having enough tour games.
“I never make predictions, but I would just say that Australia is favoured going into the series right at this stage. When you look around world cricket these days, and it has been for some time, it’s very difficult to tour other countries, and the reason for that is the travelling teams no longer have that preparation in a country (they are visiting),” Buchanan said on the sidelines of an event at the C.P. Goenka International School here on Thursday.
“They don’t play two or three games prior to playing the first Test match to adjust to a country, because nobody wants to tour for that long. That makes it very difficult when you go to Perth, where it’s fast and bouncy. India will be playing against Bangladesh (and New Zealand) at home prior to that, so the wickets are going to be completely different,” he said.
For the first time since 1991-92, the series will have five Tests - along with a day-night Test at Adelaide - and Australia’s two-time World Cup-winning coach Buchanan refers to it as a ‘classic’. “Five Tests does make a difference because by the time they reach Sydney, both teams will have played presumably four hard Test matches in a short period of time. So, that’s going to test everybody physically and mentally right through the series,” Buchanan said.
“Both the sides, in a sense, are pretty evenly balanced, with good strong bowling line-ups, but I favour the Australian bowling line-up if I had to compare them. India has good strong batting line-ups, but possibly I would still favour the Australian batting line-up a little bit at this point in time, but just as you go into the series, it’s evenly balanced…”
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While he insists that lack of tour games will have an impact on the series, Buchanan admits that with a packed calendar, it is difficult to accommodate more side games while on tour. “It means you’ve actually got to stop playing a lot of the T20 and the T10 leagues. But that’s not going to happen. And, of course, from a player’s perspective, they don’t want long tours anymore because they want to be freed up to play other tournaments. So that’s not going to happen,” he said.
“...It’s decisions from the administrators that are key in factoring formats. I think there needs to be a place for the transition game between playing really short format games and the longer format because you need to understand going back to just adjustment and adapting. You need to be able to work out how to adapt your game, bowl or bat, field or whatever, from a really short game to a longer game…”
While Buchanan is not in favour of Steve Smith opening the innings for Australia, the former coach feels the absence of David Warner, who retired from international cricket a couple of months ago, will not hurt the home team. “When you look at his (Warner’s) performances over the last 18 months or so, he wasn’t the best player that he was previously. So, it’s time for a change.
“I think after the Australia-India series, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of changes in that Australian Test side because most of them are over 30,” the seasoned coach stated.
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