You know there are many reasons for a cricket fan in you to get excited this summer when two legendary nations are gonna face each other. When India take on Australia, there is always sparkling anticipations in the minds of fans from both sides. India Vs Australia rivalry started way back in 1947/48. Since then India has played 9 series down under, of which 6 resulted into defeats while 3 were draw.
Last series in 2008/09 was more remembered for 'off'field battles than 'on'field battles. But still that series produced some fantastic cricketing contest nonetheless. In fact India's Win over Australia in Perth, which was a Fortress for Australian team for last two decades, actually started Legendary Australian Team's spectacular downfall. After 3 years since that last tour, both teams find their situation reversed(sort of). While today's Australian team is going through a rebuilding phase, India on other hand are preparing for well deserved send off to their beloved Legends. For Trio of Dravid, Sachin, Laxman this is most probably last Overseas tour. (since India is not scheduled to to play away tests since early 2014). And more than anyone else those three would like to taste most elusive series win (Only south Africa is other place where India yet to win a series.) of their and any Indian cricketer's life. on other hand Australia would also want to get things right after thier not-so-good last couple of home seasons. They have lost a series to England exactly a year ago by 3-1. And whats more humiliating was that all of those three defeats were innings defeat. That was their first Ashes defeat at home in last 20 years. Things didn't stop there. Last month they achieved another feat (undesirable, though!) of losing a test match to their trans-Tasmanian rivals, New Zealand, which was their first test defeat in last 20 years. Defeat which used to be very rare term for Australia in last decade, has now found very repeating appearances in recent series. (Australia had just lost 3 Test in between 2000-2008 while they lost 17 Test since 2009-2011).
For Australia, team which would take on India in first Test is perfect mixture of Youth and experience, at least on the paper. While talking about performance and form they found themselves in some weird situation. Guys which have least experience (Warner, Pattinson) are in great form while guys with most experience (Ponting, Hussey) are struggling for form.
On other side, in Indian Camp, Picture is quite different. Their experienced men (Dravid, Laxman, Sachin) all are in good form lately while young legs (Kohli, Gambhir) are not up to the mark compared to their ODI form.
For Indian team, they have a batting line up loaded with such names that any team in the world would be proud to have. But their bowling line up,prone to injuries, remains to be a cause for concern. On contrary, in oppossition camp, Australia has talented & formidable bowling attack albiet younger which is capable of rattling any batting line up in the world. While batting line up with burden of Out of form legends (Ponting, Hussey) is their weak department.
So when both team will take their ground on the field tomorrow, there will be the Real contest between Indian Batsmen Vs Australian Bowlers. But that team will come out as a winner whose weak department outperforms counterparts’ weak department.(Indian Bowling Vs Australin Batting).
So to sum up I would like to quote dravid's words few days back- Indian Players like a few, creaking Terminators, are back.
Older, wiser and I hope improved..
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