Border-Gavaskar Trophy: India in transition but Australia would expect to face against a very strong team, says Australian batter Voges

Mumbai: Former Australian batter Adam Voges expects India to field a strong Test team even without retired stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, and foresees a tough battle in the five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy early next year.

Neither Kohli nor Rohit will be a part of an Indian Test side for the first time in a decade when the hosts take on the Aussies from January 21 at Nagpur.

"Well, it's a changing of the guard as well isn't it, two absolute legends of the game who have just been the pillars of the Indian Test team for a long period of time, so there's a transition for the Indian team as well," Voges told PTI in an exclusive interaction at an event to announce a new partnership between Perth Scorchers and the Roger Cook's Western Australia Govt. State of Energy campaign.


But Voges was under no illusion about India's strength at home.

"There's some young exciting talent that's coming through and the thing that I've always seen every time I've come to India, is how much talent there is here.

"I know the Australian team will be expecting a very strong Indian team to come up against, and it's going to be a great challenge, so I'm sure we're looking forward to it," he added.

Voges believed Australia will have a staggered retirement plan for some of the "absolute legends" of the game that the team currently has.

"Australia learned a really good lesson when (Shane) Warne, (Glenn) McGrath and (Justin) Langer all retired at the same time, and it took a little while to be able to rebuild from that," he said.

"So, I would imagine that there will be staged retirements for some of the absolute greats of Australian cricket, but equally those guys probably have the right to continue playing until they have decided that their time is up.

"I would imagine that there will be some planning to stage those retirements so that we don't lose a whole heap of great players at the same time," Voges said.

Voges, who played 20 Tests, 31 ODIs and 7 T20Is for Australia, garnered most of his reputation as the batter to have the second best Test average -- 61.87 -- after Sir Donald Bradman at the time of his retirement.

The 46-year-old said Australia would have had a good run in Test cricket by the time they arrived in India for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

"Australia has got so much Test cricket coming up, about to embark in a Test series in South Africa, have New Zealand at home in Australia before we get to Border-Gavaskar Trophy," he said.

"I don't think there's any secret that the Australian team is ageing and that there will be some transition at some stage, but I think in terms of new players, we see someone like Cooper Connolly, who is now in the Test squad in South Africa.

"He has got a skill set that could be really successful. We've seen him do well in the IPL, that's a skill set that could be really successful over here in Test cricket, so I'm certainly hoping Cooper is one of those, but Australia have got eight or nine Test matches before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy," Voges said.

Voges admitted Australian batters, especially Marnus Labuschagne, will have to deliver more.

"There has been a lot of talk publicly about Marnus' position in the team, he's on that tour to South Africa, and it's another opportunity for him, he would probably be the first to admit performance wise hasn't been where he would like it to have been over the last 12-24 months," Voges said.

"He has got another opportunity as does the rest of the Australian top order to try and make an impression in South Africa. I know there's been a lot of talk about the Australian top order, but Australia's still winning games at Test cricket, and so you try and put that into context, but I'm sure all of them would love to have a bigger output over the next 12 months," he added.

Meanwhile, Voges hoped that the Big Bash League contest in Chennai in December between Perth Scorchers and Melbourne Renegades will contribute to the long-lasting relationship between India and Australia.

"We certainly hope that this isn't a one-off event, this is the start of something long-lasting and something much bigger than just the one game, but the overall sense is that of great excitement to be involved in this game.

"Every time I've been to Chepauk, it's been a sea of yellow or a sea of blue, so hopefully, we can put a few orange shirts in there and win some new fans in what is a really iconic venue.

"Chennai Super Kings is a team that we have admired from afar and in a way, the Scorchers, we've tried to model ourselves a little bit on CSK in their consistency and the way that they've gone about their successes in the IPL is something that we've certainly tried to emulate as well," Voges added.