India v Australia | 4th Test | Ahmedabad | Mar 09-Mar 13 | Pre-match Discussion

[MenInG]

Stakes never been higher for India.

A win here will probably get them into the final of WTC23.

A loss will make it tough and probably nullify all the morale gains from wins in the first 2 Tests.

For Australia a chance to show they are the best and the ICC team rankings will show that.

 

[MenInG]

Eyeing a place in the World Test Championship (WTC) final, India were humbled by Australia in the third Test on Friday in Indore. Chasing a modest target of 76, Australia crossed the finishing line with ease, despite losing a wicket on the second ball of play on Day 3. Travis Head scored a quickfire 49, while Marnus Labuschagne hit the winning boundary to remain unbeaten on 28. Former India head coach Ravi Shastri, who is on commentary duty for the ongoing series, slammed the team after the defeat, saying that the hosts "took things for granted", allowing the game to slip away from their grasp.

"That is what a little complacency, a little bit of overconfidence can do where you take things for granted, you drop guard and this game will bring you down. I think it was a combination of all these things when you actually cast your mind back to the first innings, see some of the shots played, see some of the over-eagerness to try and dominate in these conditions. You reflect back, take a step back or two to analyse," Shastri said on commentary after Australia won the game.

After Australia were thrashed in the first two Tests inside three days, the series now stands at 2-1 to the hosts with one match remaining.

The dogged victory secured Australia's berth in the ICC World Test Championship final in June at The Oval. India will be sure of their place if they win the fourth Test in Ahmedabad.

The fourth and final Test will be played in Ahmedabad from March 9.

NDTV

 

[sweep_shot]

I have a feeling Aussies may win the 4th Test and make it 2-2. Let's see.

 

[GLORY OF '92]

I have a feeling Aussies may win the 4th Test and make it 2-2. Let's see.

I expect Kohli and Gill to score. An innings win is incoming.

 

[Front Foot Pull]

IF India wins 4th test they will be ranked number 1 in ICC Team Rankings with 121 rating and AUS will be 2 with 120.

 

[MenInG]

The pitches in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy have been under the scanner for their spin-friendly nature. The pitches in India are known to help the spinners but the balls exploding from Day 1 are rare. However, the conditions have been too friendly in the three Tests played in the Border-Gavaskar trophy so far, with all three games ending within three days.

The wicket in Indore was the worst of them all as there was a sharp turn and bounce from ball one. Consequently, India lost the game by nine wickets as the Aussies marked a return into the series.

India skipper Rohit Sharma after the loss had said that the team enjoys playing in such conditions and they will continue to prepare pitches like the one in Indore. However, as per the latest reports, the wicket in Ahmedabad is likely to be a normal one. A state association source said that they have not received any instructions from the BCCI and they are preparing a normal track.

"We haven't received any instructions from the Indian team management and our local curators are preparing a normal track as we have always done through the season," a state association source was quoted as saying by news agency PTI on Saturday.

"In fact, last Ranji game over here in January, Railways scored 500 plus (508) batting first and Gujarat, although suffered innings defeat, scored 200 plus in both innings. It won't be too different this time," the source added.

An official, however, said that the pitch can change once the BCCI curators Taposh Chatterjee and Ashsh Bhowmick take over.

"Obviously, last few days the BCCI's grounds and pitches committee instruct the local curator. But, certainly, from our end our endeavour is to produce a good Test match pitch," the official said.

Notably, the last two tests in Ahmedabad have ended in two days.

"You have to factor in that the Day/Night Test and the one after that were the first ones held after the stadium was refurbished and you had no clue how the pitch will pan out," the official argued.

https://www.cricketcountry.com/news...tch-for-fourth-ind-vs-aus-test-report-1072683

 

[MenInG]

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Steve Smith has no ambition to be Australia's full-time captain again but the 33-year-old may continue to lead them in the fourth and final test against India as regular captain Pat Cummins stays put in Sydney.

Cummins returned home after the second test in Delhi to be with his ailing mother after Australia had dropped 2-0 behind in the four-test series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Smith led their brilliant turnaround in Indore where they beat India by nine wickets inside three days to secure their place in the final of the World Test Championship (WTC) in June.

Coach Andrew McDonald said Cummins remained in touch with rest of the squad in India.

"He's obviously dealing with what he's dealing with at home but he's still so invested in this group," McDonald told reporters on Saturday.

"Our thoughts are still with him and his family at this difficult time.

"We're in constant contact with him daily, so at the moment he's not here and the test match is a few days away, so we'll discuss with Pat on a daily basis."

Smith led Australia between 2014 and 2018 before he was stripped off the honour following a ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.

He remains Cummins's deputy since the paceman became test captain in November 2021 and has stepped in three times to lead Australia since then.

Smith said he had no ambition to return as full-time captain at any stage.

"My time is done. It's Pat's team now," Smith said after inflicting on India what was only their third defeat on home soil in their last 46 tests dating back to 2012.

"I've obviously been able to stand in this week, obviously in tough circumstances with Patty going home. Our thoughts are still with him back home," Smith said.

"But India is a part of the world I love captaining ... it's probably my favourite place in the world to captain."

Smith marshalled his attack with aplomb, took a stunning catch at leg slip to remove Cheteshwar Pujara at a crucial juncture and overall looked in charge in the frenetic, low-scoring contest.

Former Australia opener Matthew Hayden was among those impressed by Smith's "inspired" captaincy in Indore.

"You could tell that he was right in the match. He has been brilliant. Tactically on point, up for the challenge," Hayden said during commentary.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/oth...p&cvid=25b56ab573414b4c9a85554e94a94849&ei=33

 

[Saurav]

India will win and people will again cry about pitches

 

[Justcrazy]

Indian batsmen will play with more responsiblity . India will prepare same kind of pitch , this time Aussies will not be that lucky. India highly likely to win.

 

[Hitman]

Regardless of the result, I have thoroughly enjoyed the contest. India vs Australia is the best contest in the game currently in my opinion, particularly in Test cricket.

 

[MenInG]

Australia have confirmed that stand-in skipper Steve Smith will continue to captain the team for the final Border-Gavaskar Test against India.

Steve Smith stood in as captain for Australia after Pat Cummins flew back home after the second Test in Delhi. Cummins will remain at home in Sydney to be at the side of his mother Maria, who is in palliative care due to breast cancer.

Smith filled in for Cummins as captain in Indore and led Australia to their first Test win on tour. With Nathan Lyon leading the way with a 10-wicket match haul, the visitors spun their way to a nine-wicket victory at the Holkar Stadium.

With the win, Australia punched their ticket to the ICC World Test Championship Final 2021-23, which will be played at the Oval on 7 June. They now await to see who will join them for the marquee Test, with India and Sri Lanka the two teams in the running.

No decision has been made yet on Cummins' availability for the ODI leg of the India series, which begins on 17 March in Mumbai. Cummins was appointed the ODI captain last year after Aaron Finch decided to step down.

One change was made to the ODI squad, with Nathan Ellis coming in for the injured Jhye Richardson.

Richardson suffered a recurrence of a left hamstring injury while playing club cricket, which ruled him out of the ODI series. The express pacer also missed the latter half of the Big Bash League due to the hamstring issue.

Australia's ODI squad for ODI series against India: Pat Cummins (c), Sean Abbott, Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, David Warner, Adam Zampa.

https://www.icc-cricket.com/news/3098144

 

[Pakhs]

India will win and people will again cry about pitches

They have been crying about pitches from day 1 nothing to do with who wins and almost everyone is of an understanding that the last one where Australia wont was the worst of the lot.

Unfortunately these kind of lottery dust bowl wicket no result can be taken seriously its just not proper cricket.

 

[Pakhs]

Regardless of the result, I have thoroughly enjoyed the contest. India vs Australia is the best contest in the game currently in my opinion, particularly in Test cricket.

What did you enjoy spin bowlers bowling from around the wicket? The most negative lines in test cricket possible? sacrificing all their skills and waiting on dust bowls / under prepared wicket to get batsmen out? India v Australia is good only in Australian grounds.

 

[docteurmanish]

As I predicted , weak indian batting will cost india one game .
Ind will win 3-1 was my prediction dropping a game due to weak batting. Gill not yet found form .

Reasons -

Pujara is back in form . This is bad news for aussie .
Ahmedabad will suit indias fifth bowler - axar patel likely will be in the wickets .
Shami - siraj pair will be back.
Kohli will play one decent knock . Gill is due for a big score too .

Only weakness in indian team is bharat batting - seems to throw away his wicket but has potential .

But it will be a hard fought match .

From aussie standpoint, they have made good gains in the series .

The wtc final will be aussie as favorite. India likely will need to play kuldeep and hardick with jadeja , Shami and siraj to have a chance at lords

 

[Bhaag Viru Bhaag]

As I predicted , weak indian batting will cost india one game .
Ind will win 3-1 was my prediction dropping a game due to weak batting. Gill not yet found form .

Reasons -

Pujara is back in form . This is bad news for aussie .
Ahmedabad will suit indias fifth bowler - axar patel likely will be in the wickets .
Shami - siraj pair will be back.
Kohli will play one decent knock . Gill is due for a big score too .

Only weakness in indian team is bharat batting - seems to throw away his wicket but has potential .

But it will be a hard fought match .

From aussie standpoint, they have made good gains in the series .

The wtc final will be aussie as favorite. India likely will need to play kuldeep and hardick with jadeja , Shami and siraj to have a chance at lords

Nope. This is bad news for India.

 

[Front Foot Pull]

As I predicted , weak indian batting will cost india one game .
Ind will win 3-1 was my prediction dropping a game due to weak batting. Gill not yet found form .

Reasons -

Pujara is back in form . This is bad news for aussie .
Ahmedabad will suit indias fifth bowler - axar patel likely will be in the wickets .
Shami - siraj pair will be back.
Kohli will play one decent knock . Gill is due for a big score too .

Only weakness in indian team is bharat batting - seems to throw away his wicket but has potential .

But it will be a hard fought match .

From aussie standpoint, they have made good gains in the series .

The wtc final will be aussie as favorite. India likely will need to play kuldeep and hardick with jadeja , Shami and siraj to have a chance at lords

siraj will be rested. shami and umesh will play
on current form, bharat isn't the only weakness.
his back won't support test cricket. be happy if he manages to play both T20Is and ODIs without getting injured again.

 

[Aman]

I expect Kohli and Gill to score. An innings win is incoming.

Indian fans have been saying that for the last 4 years.

 

[BunnyRabbit]

If Australia manage a win here, Cummins will definitely be replaced as captain.

 

[MenInG]

Australia great Ricky Ponting has once again thrown his support behind out of form batter Virat Kohli, but suggested India should consider a dramatic change to their batting order should they qualify for the ICC World Test Championship Final at The Oval in June.

Kohli has managed just 111 runs from five innings during the ongoing Border-Gavaskar against Australia and will once again come up against the same opposition should India clinch the final spot in the World Test Championship decider with a victory in the fourth Test in Ahmedabad this week.

Ponting discussed Kohli current woes with the bat with host Sanjana Ganesan on the latest episode of The ICC Review and the former Australia captain is unperturbed by his lack of a big score during the current series.

"I'm not looking at anybody's form in this Test series because, for a batsman, it has just been an absolute, it's been a nightmare,” Ponting said.

"For Virat, I've said it before I say it over and over. Champion players always find a way, and yes, it might seem like he's in a bit of a drought at the moment and he might not be scoring the runs that we all expect him to score.

"And certainly, you know, he's a realist as well. And we all know as batsmen, when you're struggling and not scoring runs, you don't need anybody else to tell you. You're pretty aware of it yourself.

"But no, I'm every day of the week putting my hand up and not even showing any sort of concern to Virat Kohli. Because I know he will bounce back."

Ponting knows conditions in England in June will be vastly different to what the teams are currently facing on the sub-continent and believes India should consider a change to their batting order should they reach the World Test Championship final.

Experienced right-hander KL Rahul was recently dropped for Shubman Gill at the top of India’s batting order, but Ponting thinks there is a way that both players can feature at The Oval.

Rahul has scored two of his seven Test centuries in England - including an impressive 149 at The Oval back in 2018 - and Ponting thinks the 30-year-old could be an option to be utilised in India's middle-order.

"With someone like KL Rahul having gone out of this side and Shubman Gill having come in, both these guys have played a bit of Test match cricket and you could potentially have both of those guys in the same team,” Ponting suggested.

"Maybe Shubman could start at the top and KL could potentially move down into the middle order, because he's played cricket in those (English) conditions before, albeit at the top of the order.

“But one thing we know about the UK is that the ball swings for long periods of time during the day. And if the overhead conditions are suitable, then the ball tends to swing right the way through an innings."

Ponting urged both India and Australia to be adaptable to the English conditions and select the best XI they think can prosper during the one-off Test showpiece.

"Because it's just a one-off Test match, it will be really important to pick the team that you think is going to have the most success in those conditions," Ponting noted.

"The Oval can be a really, really good place to bat as long as the sun is out, it's probably as good a wicket as any in the UK. So I think that's what it would come down to for India. It would just come down to assessing the conditions and then maybe forgetting about this last series that's just been played.

"The conditions that we're seeing here (in India) are quite extreme. If it was Australia and India, they would both look at the conditions and pick the team that they think was best to win that one-off game."

ICC

 

[MenInG]

Sighscreen for the Ahmedabad Test

 

[Rajdeep]

Considering Modi Ji will be personally present to watch this game in a stadium named after him, we cant afford to lose this match. Huge pressure on Indian players and curators to deliver to keep our beloved PMs image intact. We bhakts won't take it lightly if we somehow lose this.

 

[MenInG]

India head coach Rahul Dravid delved briefly into the talk around the pitch ahead of the fourth Test against Australia in Ahmedabad in the pre-match press conference.

Dravid said that challenging wickets were a "part of the game" with the talk around pitches raging after the Indore pitch for the third Test received a "poor" rating from ICC.

The home team's head coach also played down talks around India's batters struggling, maintaining that expectations have to be "realistic".

“We have played on some challenging wickets when we go overseas also," Dravid stated.

" [We] played in South Africa recently where spinners were completely taken out of the game. And everyone wants to produce wickets where eventually one wants results.

"You will probably prepare wickets where the ball holds a bit more sway over the bat and that’s necessary and part of the game.”

India's lower middle order has contributed to a large chunk of the runs in the series with the top-order misfiring, but Dravid appeared unperturbed by the same.

“You need to be realistic as to what is a good performance on these challenging wickets," Dravid said.

"So, you need to be realistic what the benchmarks are now, what standards are on these kinds of surfaces just one good performance can change the game.

"It might not be a double hundred but a 50-60 or 70 somewhere, but could actually be a very, very good score in some conditions."

'This is as good as it gets' – Todd Murphy recalls bowling to Virat Kohli on debut

India are 2-1 ahead in the series, but Australia's stunning win in Indore in the previous Test saw them qualify for the ICC World Test Championship final and also proved that they could not only test, but also beat, India in these conditions.

The fourth Test begins on Thursday in Ahmedabad with India aiming to book their place in the WTC final with a win.

ICC

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Australia is a really good team. To beat us in a Test on our own pitches is a big deal. That said, we desperately need fresh legs in this team.

Rohit - 35
Umesh - 35
Jadeja - 34
Kohli - 34
Pujara - 35
Ashwin -36
Shami probably 35/36 (real age)

Can't have so many oldies in an international side

 

[MenInG]

Team India is all set to take on Australia in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy which begins on March 9 (Thursday). Rohit Sharma led Indian team dominated Aussie in the first two Tests, but it was the Australians who bounced back in the 3rd Test in Indore.

Rather than Cheteshwar Pujara, no batter was able to do much on the turning track and having made a change at the top of the order. Star Indian batter-wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant, met with a horrific accident last year, in his absence KS Bharat donned the gloves in the first three tests.

However, the Indian head coach Rahul Dravid wasn't too concerned with Bharat's form saying that the scores have to be taken in context with the challenging conditions while mentioning his contributions in Indore and especially in Delhi.

Dravid was seen helping Ishan in the nets and according to many reports Ishan Kishan is likely to make his debut ahead of the fourth Test in Ahmedabad whereas Bharat could retain his place in the side.

Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Dravid said, "We are not (concerned) and it again comes to a question of perspective and understanding of some of the challenges and conditions that he has kept in and even though it's not a big contribution but he got 17 in the first innings."

"[Bharat] Got a nice contribution in Delhi where he played positively, and you need a little bit of luck in these conditions and he hasn't probably had that, and he is shaping really well and keeping really nicely for us. So we need to put batting performance in perspective," Dravid added.

https://www.cricketcountry.com/news...dias-wicketkeeper-batter-for-4th-test-1073291

 

[pillionrider]

Sighscreen for the Ahmedabad Test

What an inspiring face to look at, while hanging around the nonstriker's end

 

[pillionrider]

Considering Modi Ji will be personally present to watch this game in a stadium named after him, we cant afford to lose this match. Huge pressure on Indian players and curators to deliver to keep our beloved PMs image intact. We bhakts won't take it lightly if we somehow lose this.

The great man definitely deserves the rest after tirelessly working 18 hours a day for the nation