Australia and India now get ready for a four-match Test series starting Tuesday in Adelaide as players of both the teams seem to have gathered themselves after the untimely death of Phil Hughes. Time to move on and get back to cricket, and some say that Hughes himself would have also wanted that way.
Last time when India had travelled to Australia, there were experienced players in the team but still were handed a 4-0 drubbing. On this tour, however, the Indian Test side has relatively new players, but seasoned enough to fight back the Aussie resilience. Over the years, India have found it difficult to find a steady opening pair for Tests, though Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir did well for a decent period of time.
Both of them are no more in reckoning with Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay taking their places. Vijay with a tight technique has adapted well both at home and in overseas conditions, but Dhawan in England struggled against quality bowling of James Anderson and Stuart Broad. The left-handed batsman's technique got exposed in seaming conditions failing to negate swinging deliveries and returned with poor scores of 12, 29, 7, 31, 6, 37.
In the two warm-up games in Australia also, Dhawan's struggle continued with scores of 10 and 0. On the other hand, Vijay during the England tour got a hundred and two half-centuries from five-Test matches. He also seems to have settled well to the bouncy tracks of Australia by raking up two fifties in the two tour matches ahead of the actual Test series.
The pitches in Australia won't have demons as such compared to England, where the ball does a lot more off the track. While the Australian pitches will offer true bounce and once a batsman gets his eye in can go the distance to make big runs. These two warm-up games would have given the Indian batsmen a sense to get used to the bounce. But the Australian quicks - Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris and Josh Hazlewood won't make life easier for Indian batsmen, especially for Dhawan and Vijay.
In England, Vijay and Dhawan failed to hold up one end, which exposed the middle order early in the innings. The selectors to be on the safer side have drafted an extra opener in KL Rahul if one of the two openers find difficult to get their act together. Rahul was part of India A side that toured Australia earlier this year where he got a fifty, but it was Naman Ojha who scored heavily with a double hundred and two centuries. This proves that batting won't be difficult if batsmen decide to apply and graft at the crease.
If the opening pair of Dhawan and Vijay clicks, India can in every way put up a strong batting performance on Australian soil. Added to that a confident pair of openers can do a world of good for the other batsmen following them.
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