India v Australia | 2nd Test | Delhi | Feb 17-Feb 21 | Pre-match discussion

[MenInG]

Australia have been hammered by India in the 1st Test which ended in 3 days.

Lots of noises from both camps but the fact is Australia have to win or draw this match to stay in contention to win the series.

India on the other hand are tasked with proving to the world that the first Test win was no flash in the pan.

So what changes can be expected from both sides?

 

[MenInG]

JUST IN: Australia has pulled the trigger on a change to the squad for the second Test with left-armer Matt Kuhnemann heading over

 

[MenInG]

Australia have reacted swiftly to their disappointing loss to India in the first Test in Nagpur by flying spinner Matt Kuhnemann out to join the squad for the remainder of the tour.

Kuhnemann will come under consideration for a Test debut when the second Test commences in Delhi on Friday, with the left-armer joining up with the squad to replace leg-spinner Mitchell Swepson.

Swepson missed out on selection for Australia's innings and 132 runs loss to India and has decided to fly home to be alongside his wife for the birth of their baby.

It opens the door for Kuhnemann to play the second Test as Australia selectors look to re-jig their XI and get back into contention in the four-match Test series.

Kuhnemann could vie with fellow lefty Ashton Agar for a different spinning option, while selectors are hopeful that veteran left-armer Mitchell Starc and star all-rounder Cameron Green will be fit to play.

In-form batter Travis Head is another player that may be recalled for the Delhi Test, with the left-hander surprisingly omitted for the opening Test of the series despite a good run at home during the recent summer.

While Kuhnemann is yet to play a Test for Australia, he did feature in four ODIs against Sri Lanka in the middle of last year and managed to pick up six wickets.

Australia currently lead the ICC World Test Championship standings and need to avoid a 4-0 whitewash to India to ensure they reach June's final at The Oval.

Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Matt Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner

ICC

 

[jnaveen1980]

Nobody has beaten India in Delhi in 36 years.

This was the last match they lost.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ia-vs-zimbabwe-only-test-63604/full-scorecard

It was one of the craziest match ever. India bowled out for 75. India reducecd West Indies to 29/6 in no time. 18 wickets fell on day 1. 17 of them went to seamers. Viv Richards made a calm and collected 100 to finish the chase. Since then India has not lost there. Won 10 matches drew 2 matches. India's fortress like Gabba was for Australia. So will Australia turn the table here?

 

[dravidthewall]

It's quite tough for Australia to win in Delhi

 

[MenInG]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Australia now know the difference between facing duplicate Ashwin and real Ashwin. You can't prepare to face one of all-time great by facing a young first-class player. Hope they not searching for a Jadeja duplicate in Delhi.</p>— Mohammad Kaif (@MohammadKaif) <a href="https://twitter.com/MohammadKaif/status/1624699247051575299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Front Foot Pull]

result aside, aesthetically this will be one of the ugliest matches to watch.
an already ugly stadium will be made more ugly with the usual old style printed advertisements vinyls. and the disgusting delhi air quality will top them all.
mostly the first hour of every day's play will look like someone has applied a heavy fog filter on the broadcast.
HATE IT ALL.

 

[Ab Fan]

Nobody has beaten India in Delhi in 36 years.

This was the last match they lost.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ia-vs-zimbabwe-only-test-63604/full-scorecard

It was one of the craziest match ever. India bowled out for 75. India reducecd West Indies to 29/6 in no time. 18 wickets fell on day 1. 17 of them went to seamers. Viv Richards made a calm and collected 100 to finish the chase. Since then India has not lost there. Won 10 matches drew 2 matches. India's fortress like Gabba was for Australia. So will Australia turn the table here?

Not sure if you posted the right link. Can you post the right one?

 

[jnaveen1980]

Not sure if you posted the right link. Can you post the right one?

Don't even know how i ended up with that score card. Here is the correct one.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...-vs-west-indies-1st-test-63466/full-scorecard

Viv Richards last match winning innings in India. One of his two match winning knock in India. Bazball from the 80s. 109* in 111 balls

 

[sweep_shot]

India have the momentum. They will probably win this one too.

 

[hoshiarpurexpress]

In Delhi these days to attend a wedding. Will definitely try to go to Kotla for one of the days to see the match.
Hopefully India does well in this match as well. But looking for some fight back by Aussies as well, they always do.

 

[MenInG]

More issues from Aussies:

==

Australia suffered a humiliating defeat in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar series against India, losing by an innings and 123 runs in Nagpur. The loss cleared highlighted Australia's struggle against spin. In bid to bounce back, the Pat Cummins-led side sought to learn more about Nagpur's VCA Stadium and hence had planned to have a practice session before they left for New Delhi, for the second Test. But their plans scuppered by local curators, leaving Australia great Ian Healy fuming at India's "pathetic" act as he called for an intervention from the ICC.

Cricket Australia revealed that hours before Australia's practice session in Nagpur, the team were forced to cancel after finding out that the pitch was watered on the previous day. A member of the VCA Stadium was spotted hosing down the track moments after India had wrapped up the first Test on Saturday.

Speaking on SEN on Monday, former Australia wicketkeeper Healy was left furious as he called the act "pathetic".

“It’s really embarrassing the scuppering of our plans to get some practice sessions on that Nagpur wicket,” Healy said. “That’s not good, that’s just not good for cricket. The ICC needs to step in here. For them to water the wicket unceremoniously when it was requested for practice is horrible and that has to improve.”

Earlier, Australia coach Andrew McDonald had told SEN that the practice session was not “naughty boy nets” but an a chance for the visitors to adapt to the “extreme” conditions.

“It’s pretty clear isn’t it, their intent with the surfaces they want to play on. We were expecting that coming in so as I said before, we’ve been really clear on what we expected,” he said.

“When we got here we got exactly that. They’re not naughty boy nets today (the planned session). We’ve got a big squad of 17 players so there’s different people on different training programs. There’ll be a couple of players from the game that will come down, so they’ll be seen at training. But it’s certainly not naughty boy nets, it’s just preparing for the next game.”

Meanwhile, Australia called in left-arm spinner Matt Kuhnemann immediately after the first Test, in place of Mitchell Swepson, who headed home for the birth of his first child.

The second Test will begin from February 17 onwards.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cric...etic-india-act-in-nagpur-101676255476522.html

 

[jnaveen1980]

Australia at this point should just chill out and react to the ball rather than play with preconceived opinion. That is where you make mistakes. They were bull dozing lot of teams at home with high scores. Moment they played at the spicy gabba their batting was exposed by Rabada/Nortje. Next test again played on a flat true wicket. If they keep playing on wickets like that they are going to struggle big time in subcontinent. They lost to Bangladesh as well.

 

[MP2011]

Healy is such a sook, sooks about anything and everything.

 

[JattMaula]

Aussies made Nagpur curators villains in first place.

Every other sentence in the coverage of the test was about the pitch.

Curators aren't your slaves anymore. Stop sooking.

 

[MenInG]

Healy is such a sook, sooks about anything and everything.

Think you can do away with "sook" in every other post please - thanks

 

[MP2011]

Think you can do away with "sook" in every other post please - thanks

Will whine be any better? Because that's what he does all the time.

Thanks!

 

[MP2011]

Aussies made Nagpur curators villains in first place.

Every other sentence in the coverage of the test was about the pitch.

Curators aren't your slaves anymore. Stop sooking.

That's why our win in the first test was all the more sweeter!

 

[jeetu]

Nobody has beaten India in Delhi in 36 years.

This was the last match they lost.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...ia-vs-zimbabwe-only-test-63604/full-scorecard

It was one of the craziest match ever. India bowled out for 75. India reducecd West Indies to 29/6 in no time. 18 wickets fell on day 1. 17 of them went to seamers. Viv Richards made a calm and collected 100 to finish the chase. Since then India has not lost there. Won 10 matches drew 2 matches. India's fortress like Gabba was for Australia. So will Australia turn the table here?

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series...-vs-west-indies-1st-test-63466/full-scorecard
I saw that match , wicket suddenly started to get flatter and flatter after first day. Pretty odd to see that on Indian pitch.

 

[wrongun]

Aussies made Nagpur curators villains in first place.

Every other sentence in the coverage of the test was about the pitch.

Curators aren't your slaves anymore. Stop sooking.

The saltiest way to tell someone else to stop sooking ever- with a comment full of sook.

 

[WengerOut]

Have the Aussies complained about spectators biased towards India, yet? That is the one which is left i think.

 

[MP2011]

Aussies are lucky that its still winter season in most of India. Had it been warmer they'd have found another thing to complain about.

 

[JattMaula]

The saltiest way to tell someone else to stop sooking ever- with a comment full of sook.

Stop sooking please.

 

[JattMaula]

Aussies are lucky that its still winter season in most of India. Had it been warmer they'd have found another thing to complain about.

Summer will start it's wrath by the last test in Ahmedabad. Dry Gujarat will feal extra crispy to Aussies.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Aussies made Nagpur curators villains in first place.

Every other sentence in the coverage of the test was about the pitch.

Curators aren't your slaves anymore. Stop sooking.

Their players didn't to be fair. Cummins didn't complain at all. Some of their fans on their Footy forum accused India of pitch tampering , biased umpiring, ball tampering and DRS tampering as well .

 

[JattMaula]

Their players didn't to be fair. Cummins didn't complain at all. Some of their fans on their Footy forum accused India of pitch tampering , biased umpiring, ball tampering and DRS tampering as well .

That's why I said coverage. It's the media, social media sooks and some former players sooking up to high heavens.

 

[Front Foot Pull]

MEDIA ADVISORY

February 13, 2023

Mastercard Australia tour of India for Border-Gavaskar Trophy

Venue for third Test shifted to Indore from Dharamsala

The third Test of the Mastercard Australia tour of India for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, originally scheduled to take place at the HPCA Stadium, Dharamsala from 1st to 5th March has now been moved to Holkar Stadium, Indore.

Owing to harsh winter conditions in the region, the outfield lacks sufficient grass density and will need some time to develop fully.

 

[Front Foot Pull]

the 3rd test venue has been officially shifted because the recently relaid outfield of dharamshala couldn't grow the grass quick enough in cold weather.

took away the scenic venue from the series and giving us the rubbish indore mini park.
2nd test in ugly delhi stadium
3rd test in indore backyard stadium

rubbish rubbish rubbish from BCCI.

 

[Front Foot Pull]

delete #27 and #28

 

[docteurmanish]

Mumbai chennai bangalore Ahmedabad nagpur Calcutta and Delhi . Should not more than these venue for a big test series like india - Australia . Crowd turnout is v g good at these places . U can add one or two cities with good pitches and Facilities and turnout but avoid v small centres for tests .

 

[Bhaag Viru Bhaag]

Mumbai chennai bangalore Ahmedabad nagpur Calcutta and Delhi . Should not more than these venue for a big test series like india - Australia . Crowd turnout is v g good at these places . U can add one or two cities with good pitches and Facilities and turnout but avoid v small centres for tests .

Delhi deserves a better stadium though.

 

[MenInG]

Star batter Shreyas Iyer, who was ruled out of the first Test due to a lower back injury is still doing rehabilitation at the National Cricket Academy and it is unlikely the team management will risk playing him directly in a Test match. India and Australia will play the second Test at the Ferozshah Kotla from Friday and it is to be seen if Iyer is able to join the team.

Iyer had posted a few videos of his intense rehab programme at the NCA in Bengaluru under trainer S Rajnikanth.

Iyer is doing his strength and conditioning routines but the norm for return to play in international arena is to at least play a domestic game of some form before donning national colours again.

Hence Iyer, who hasn't played any competitive cricket for a month now, might not be directly thrown into a Test match where he might have to field for 90 overs, crouch and stand close-in and then bat for long hours.

It will be interesting to see if the Chetan Sharma-led selection committee names Iyer in the Rest of India squad for the Irani Cup match against Madhya Pradesh from March 1-5 to prove his fitness just like they asked Ravindra Jadeja to play a Ranji Trophy game against Tamil Nadu.

NDTV

 

[MenInG]

Shreyas Iyer to join India squad for Delhi Test

India batter Shreyas Iyer has successfully completed his rehab at the National Cricket Academy following his back injury and has been cleared by the BCCI Medical Team. Shreyas will join the squad in New Delhi ahead of the second Test of the Mastercard Australia tour of India for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

India’s squad for second Test: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R. Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Suryakumar Yadav

BCCI

 

[Bhaag Viru Bhaag]

Sky or KL? Who will sit out in the next test?

 

[U$ofA]

Sky or KL? Who will sit out in the next test?

No question SKY should sit out. Regarding KL, is there a difference in keeping skill set between him and Bharat? If no, then go with KL as keeper, get Gill and Iyer in. Gill opens, Iyer and KL at 5 and 6.

 

[JattMaula]

No question SKY should sit out. Regarding KL, is there a difference in keeping skill set between him and Bharat? If no, then go with KL as keeper, get Gill and Iyer in. Gill opens, Iyer and KL at 5 and 6.

Bharat is a keeper and KL is a loser. That's the difference.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Delhi deserves a better stadium though.

All of the big cities do but Its not gonna happen soon.

 

[JattMaula]

Sky or KL? Who will sit out in the next test?

Why not both?

 

[Ab Fan]

Iyer will do dance in next test.

"Baby calm down, calm down..."

 

[Bhaag Viru Bhaag]

All of the big cities do but Its not gonna happen soon.

Delhi being the capital of India deserves it the most.

 

[MenInG]

Australia skipper Pat Cummins brushed off concerns Thursday over David Warner's batting form and said he was certain the opener would play in this week's second Test against India. The left-handed Warner scored one and 10 at Nagpur last week and has struggled for form since scoring 200 in the Boxing Day Test against South Africa in Melbourne. "I'm not a selector. I don't think they've had a meeting but I'm sure Davey will be there," Cummins said of Warner's inclusion in the New Delhi Test, which starts Friday.

"You saw this year at the Boxing Day Test when he puts pressure back on the opposition he's pretty hard to bowl to. You don't get as many good balls, so he knows that. I'm sure that'd be part of his plan," said Cummins.

"He has been batting really well here. Even in the lead-up I thought he was fantastic.

"I know there's a lot of talk about spin bowling through the middle, but with that new ball it's sometimes the hardest time to bat as well."

Australia were bowled out for 91 in one session in the first Test of the four-match series in Nagpur to lose by an innings and 132 runs inside three days.

Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith showed some fight in an otherwise dismal batting display, but Cummins remained hopeful of a turnaround on another spin-friendly pitch.

"I think the planning has been really good and now it's about going out there and doing it and at times that might be being brave enough to take a calculated risk," Cummins said of his batsmen's plans.

"They've been really good, they're all really strong in their plans, trained really well, so we will see how we go."

'Show how good you are'

Australia are expected to make changes from the Nagpur drubbing, with spinner Matthew Kuhnemann, returning fast bowler Mitchell Starc and all-rounder Cameron Green fighting for a place in the side.

"Having a right-hander helps and (Green) providing our fifth bowling option also helps, he's a big player," Cummins said.

"He's still coming back from that injury, he's only had a couple of sessions where he's catching with a hard ball. We will see how he pulls up."

Cummins called Starc the "world's premier" bowler in these conditions, but said all options were open going into the Test.

Spinner Todd Murphy had debut figures of 7-124 in Nagpur and Cummins again challenged his spinners to make best of the conditions.

"Even the last game we saw a lot of around-the-wicket bowling where in Australia it's mainly over the wicket bowling," said Cummins.

"It's a bit of an adjustment, but in some ways it doesn't get any better. You have a wicket there that's spinning, you can show how good you are."

NDTV