Tejas Bajwa , 7th of January 2021
India tour of Australia (Border -Gavaskar Trophy)
THIRD TEST PREVIEW
It has been an interesting series so far, nothing less than a Bollywood movie. We have seen emotions, action, thrilling sessions, days and amazing performances by all the players involved. If we look at the tour carefully it has been equally balanced so far with India winning the T20 series 2-1 and Australia winning the ODI series 2-1 and now the all important test series is levelled at 1-1.
If we talk about pressure, both teams will be entering this test with immense pressure. Australian team was pushed completely on the back-foot after their loss in the second test to a team which was playing without its Captain (Virat Kohli) and a premiere fast bowler like Shami. From 36 all-out in the first test to a historic win in the second one, Indian team has that momentum but we were talking about pressure, for the Indian team they'll have the pressure of performing in a similar way to the second test and also without another fast bowler i.e. Umesh Yadav who is out with an injury.
If we look at the past tours of the Indian team to Australia the SCG has been a lucky ground for them in this format or the game. There was a Question mark on the venue at the end of the second test because of the covid cluster situation in Sydney. But it has received the green signal and is now ready to host the PINK test once again .
Going onto the teams both the teams will be welcoming their important openers in the form of David Warner and Rohit Sharma who has also been handed over the Vice-Captaincy of the Indian team. Indian team has announced their playing XII and the forced change brings the Karnal Express in place of the injured Umesh Yadav and this will be his debut in this format of the game. Unfortunately Mayank Agarwal makes way for the Hitman. Mayank has been India's leading run scorer in the World test championship but has had some issues with his technique on this tour, hopefully we will see him back in his golden touch before the England series. While for Australia we will surely see Warner back and maybe the new talented Will Pucovski open the batting because Burns has been dropped and Wade has unfortunately failed to convert his starts into big scores.
The weather forecast for the match is not a good news for the fans, with rain expected for the majority part of the match but hopefully it will stay away and we will get to witness a good game of cricket.
Players to watch out for:
Australia
Steve Smith- He holds the key for Australia. He is the fulcrum of their batting line up, India has so far successfully managed to keep the danger man quiet after he outclassed the Indian bowlers in the ODI series. He loves playing in SCG and let me remind you both of his ODI centuries came on this very ground in this series. If he gets a big hundred on the traditional flat batting friendly track here then I'll say Australia has half of the match in their bag.
India
Rohit Sharma- Whenever he walks onto the field he carries the burden of expectations because of the standard he has set for himself in the past. This will be his first series as an opener in test cricket overseas and it is never an easy task when it is Australia. If Rohit has his eye in early and handles the new ball attack of the Australian pace battery then we know who is the King of making big scores effortlessly.
Let me end by saying that irrespective of the players to watch out for. The key to the victory of this match lies in which pace attack comes out on top and the side that handles the other pace attack better will probably go on to clinch this test match.
AUSTRALIA, a team which is surely going to come back stronger and an INDIAN team which will have a task of redoing the good things from the previous test and to put on a fight once .
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