Jasprit Bumrah of India and Pat Cummins of Australia share a moment with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy … [+]
It’s been a low-key entry into a home Test summer for Australia. Usually there is always something spicy to generate the headlines and stir controversy.
Back before the infamous 2018 cheating scandal, the macho Australian team would puff their chests out and proclaim series whitewashes among other boasts. Goading the opposition before a ball had been bowled had become an annual tradition even though the public eventually tired by it.
Post 2018, as the Australian team had to mend their ways to win back public love, has been gentler but grenades are still lobbed and they disrupt the start of summer.
Two years ago, it was the Australian players versus former coach Justin Langer triggering – inevitably in these grim times – culture wars. Last year it was a political stance by Test opener Usman Khawaja that generated a lot of attention.
But it’s been almost eerie silence this time around ahead of what usually is a tempestuous series between foes India and Australia. It had become so dull during such a prolonged build-up to the first Test in Perth starting on Friday that some veteran cricket scribes yearned for those old days of Australian cricket taunts and slinging the opposition into the mud.
But the toothy grin of Pat Cummins through his media engagements marked a captain that is especially relaxed before a legacy-defining series for his aging team.
Pat Cummins was in a relaxed mood ahead of the first Test (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
He has every reason to be. Australia have a settled XI after uncapped Nathan McSweeney won the race to partner Khawaja at the top of the order. There are no fitness issues with allrounder Mitchell Marsh set to return to bowling in the first Test.
Even though Australia have the pressure of trying to break a 10-year drought in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, all the spotlight has been on India. After being upset in arguably the most stunning result in sports history, India enter with a lot of unknowns to their starting XI.
They are missing skipper Rohit Sharma for the first Test, while top-order batter Shubman Gill was injured during training just a week before the match. India have not played an official warm-up match in Australian conditions that are bouncier and pacier than they are used to.
India decided to play a two-day intra-squad match simulation, which included at times training for certain match scenarios and on one day saw batters remain at the crease even if they were dismissed.
India’s preparation was also shrouded in mystery as confusion reined over whether media could access their training sessions, which were shut from the public supposedly because too many fans would congregate dangerously on footpaths.
India trained at the WACA (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
India denied accusations of secrecy – as the Australian tabloids went to town on the tourists – but the theatre has certainly helped fuel interest for the first Test match with cricket seemingly having a diminished standing in Australia these days.
The circus has cemented India’s standing as cricket’s undisputed powerhouse. The Perth metro newspaper rarely splashes cricketers so prominently for its readers totally obsessed with Australian rules football.
But India’s obsessive fandom has meant it has bowed down to the presence of superstar Virat Kohli, who has been glued to the back page for almost the entire time they’ve been in town.
The series, however, threatens to be an anti-climax. It has rarely happened since the turn of the century but there are shades of the 2011-12 series when an aging India featuring a twilight Sachin Tendulkar was whitewashed in Australia.
Australia will be wary knowing an underdog India have lifted off the canvas before. They are saying all the rights publicly, in a nod to more sedate surroundings, but the sight of a beaming Cummins tells it all.
Australia knows they are the better team. They know India are vulnerable and underprepared in their conditions. But none of their players will dare be vocal, so leave it to retired firebrand David Warner for a prognostication.
“4-0,” Warner declared recently on Fox Sports.
That prediction, for once, doesn’t sound manufactured.
