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India vs Australia: ‘Will be surprised if Virat Kohli & Co don’t win Test series’
Dean Jones predicted that spinner Ravichandran Ashwin will have a big role to play this time for India as they face Australia in the four-match Test series.
Dean Jones believes that Virat Kohli & Co will be favourites when they take on Australia in the upcoming tour and he also predicted that spinner Ravichandran Ashwin will have a big role to play this time for the visitors.
“I’m expecting Ashwin to have a ripper of a series. He had a good series last time India were here, and had he played in that first Test in Adelaide, India might have won the series,” Jones told Cricketcountry. “India have a good chance, they’ve never won a Test series over here, and if they don’t I would be surprised.”
According to Jones, the biggest challenge for Australia will be to come up with a plan against the spin duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Kuldeep Yadav. Peter Handscomb, who has not been given a chance since the tour of South Africa, was recalled to bolster the batting and Jones believes that he can be a key member of the batting line-up.
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“How Australia play Ashwin and Kuldeep is going to decisive, and that’s why I think we have to have Handscomb and Finch, who are our best players of spin, available so they can counter them,” he said.
Australia’s batting has been a cause of concern since the tour of South Africa in March-April that saw Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft facing suspensions in the ball-tampering scandal.
Since then, they lost all five ODIs in England, managed a draw in the first Test against Pakistan in the UAE but were beaten by 373 runs in Abu Dhabi. In the T20Is, they were beaten 0-3 by Pakistan and then, they lost 2-1 in the ODI series against South Africa.
“Our batting standards have dropped because in our Sheffield Shield summer there have not been enough batsmen scoring big runs. There are huge irregularities in our batting,” said Jones. “The pitches are better for batting than we’ve ever had, and yet the batsmen aren’t scoring those big runs. Too few have been able to really cash in.
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“When I first played for Australia, there were only 13 guys who did not have a Test hundred. Now there’s like 30 of 40. I wonder now with all the analytics, if there’s a wonderful analytical study being done by captain and coaches and management teams that is finding holes in batsmen’s techniques more than even before. There’s a definite sign that its happening and that’s why you see so many batsman struggling to score Test hundreds.
“If this is happening and continues to happen, maybe its time that batsmen take out time to work on their games to improve their skills in Test cricket,” he said. “But they will struggle to do so because of how many T20 games are played. With so many leagues, it is difficult, but maybe that should be the way to do it.”
