India’s cricket encounters with Australia are so closely fought that they are challenging the Ashes for prominence back home, retired Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist said on Tuesday.
Ricky Ponting’s 15-man Australian squad is due to arrive in India on Sunday for a highly-anticipated four-Test series that Gilchrist hopes will live up to expectations.
“There’s no doubt the upcoming series is yet again shaping up to be a fantastic series between Australia and India,” Gilchrist, who retired earlier this year, said.
“It seems like every time the two nations have locked horns in the last 10 to 12 years, it’s lived up to what I think has become an iconic series.”
Gilchrist, in India to promote an Australian university, said he expected the tour, which begins with the first Test in Bangalore on October 9, to be hard-fought in conditions traditionally favourable to spin.
“There’s no doubt the Australian team is inexperienced in regards to what we have had for the last 10 years. We’ve always had a very experienced team,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean that these guys haven’t played in these conditions before. Australia has been sending ‘A’ teams and youth teams over here for a number of years to educate our players on the conditions and the facilities.”
“The team will definitely draw on that experience and will be very, very competitive.”
Dropping all-rounder Andrew Symonds for the upcoming India-Australia Test series was not a bad decision if it was felt that he was not focused on the team, retired Australian wicketkeeper-batsman Adam Gilchrist said on Tuesday.
“It will be a major blow not to have him in the squad, but if he was not focused on the team it was not a bad decision,” Gilchrist, who played 96 Tests for Australia, said here today.
Symonds was dropped from the squad which will tour India after he chose to go on a fishing trip instead of attending a team meeting prior to a match against Bangladesh last month.
“He (Symonds) has to make sure that no one takes his spot in the team. May be being dropped for the series is a good thing for him to get himself mentally and physically fit to return to the team,” Gilchrist said. read more on https://cricketnirvana.com
