Five things to find out from the India-Australia tour

By Chetan Narula

For the first time, Team India is touring Australia for an ODI and T20I series that starts today. The short tour assumes significance as the unsettled visitors look to get their combination right for the Asia Cup and the World T20 a little later

Important Year for Kohli

He is India’s best batsman in the ODI format, yet 2015 was a poor year by his otherwise lofty standards. He struggled to get going in the tri-series before the ODI World Cup, and scored only one hundred therein against Pakistan. His second hundred of the year came nearly seven months later, again a patchy effort at best. When shifted down the order to number four, he averaged 9.75 in five matches with a highest of 12, a ghastly comparison to his otherwise career average of 58.13. He could almost be blamed of reluctance to bat for the team’s cause, but everyone knows how fierce a competitor he is.

Barinder Sran

It has been a long time since there was noticeable excitement about the impending debut of an Indian left-arm pacer. It last happened in 2000, when Zaheer Khan arrived on the scene with a bang, uprooting Steve Waugh’s stumps with a full-blooded yorker. On Tuesday, there is a very good chance that Punjab’s Barinder Sran will be handed his India cap. The WACA at Perth is one ground where the left-arm seamer can use the cross wind to good effect, and Australian skipper Steve Smith added as much, when announcing the inclusion of left-arm seamer Joel Paris in his eleven. Even so, Sran’s presence hasn’t gone unnoticed. “I saw him bowling in the IPL and he was quite impressive. He’s a tall lad, swings the ball early and he’s got a few change-ups – I’ve let the boys know about them,” Smith said of Sran.

Dhoni Back As a Finisher

The Indian skipper is keen not to put the young batsmen under too much duress. Ahead of the first ODI, he spoke about the need to be flexible in batting order rather than have rigid roles, thus enabling the team to counter different circumstances. “No.6 is a very difficult position to bat. Whether the youngster or I bat there will depend on what the top four or five batsmen have done,” he said during the preseries press conference. It is apparent that in Raina’s absence the skipper is looking to revert to his finishing role.

A Chance for Youngsters

When the selectors were forced to axe Suresh Raina and Stuart Binny owing to poor form, it was good news for youngsters Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Manish Pandey and Rishi Dhawan as one of them will assuredly feature in the playing eleven. Infact even two can get a chance any time. For an Indian batting lineup struggling to find someone to shoulder the finisher’s responsibility, this move will be a breath of fresh air.

Bowling Plans

“If you see the squad, there are not many who can also bowl. That means if we feature a particular eleven, we may have only five bowlers in the side, even if they bowl poorly,” said MS Dhoni ahead of the first ODI. This will be the harsh truth faced by the Indian team if either Mann or Dhawan aren’t included in the playing eleven. Both of them are lower-order allrounders but apart from them, there isn’t another such player available. The three spinners R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel are essentially bowlers who can bat a bit, at best, especially in Australia