A decision made by Australian team management prior to their Test series against India left Michael Clarke perplexed.
In the four-match Test series, India takes on Australia on February 9 in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Following the three-match ODI series, the series will be part of Australia’s tour of India.
The last time the Australians won a Test match in India was in 2017, and left-arm spinner Stephen O’Keefe took 12 wickets to win the match for his team.
Michael Clarke, a legend in Australia, believes that his team should have chosen to play a practice match rather than compete in the upcoming Tests because doing so would have helped them prepare for the conditions in India.
Before India’s first Test match, there was no tour match. That will be big, I think, but I really hope I’m wrong. It’s one thing to bat in those conditions for one-day and Twenty20 cricket; it’s quite another to bat in Indian conditions for test cricket.
You need an entirely different approach than how you played in Australia if you want to start your inning against spin bowling and play reverse swing.
The games were over in two or three days, and there was no reverse swing over the entire Australian summer.
So reverse swing is going to play a significant part (in India),” he continued, “and all these batsmen that walk out and play bowlers bowling 130-140ks – there’s going to be a lot of stuff going on.”
Clarke believes that the conditions in India are extremely challenging for batsmen. If you get in, you need to keep going and score a lot because your first 20 runs in the second innings in India were wow.
In Australia, a ball that is easy to block against spin can roll along the ground, bounce, and take your glove. You can block it outside and it will bowl you in the leg; the natural variation over there is enormous,” he stated.