India in Australia Test series 2020-21

India wins the toss and elects to bat, they've never lost a Test when King Kohli wins the toss 22 wins 4 draws

India XI

Shaw

Agarwal

Pujara

Kohli

Rahane

Vihari

Saha

Ashwin

Umesh

Shami

Bumrah

I think India have taken the safe option with Saha over Pant, I know the Aussies are happy about that. Also no Hardik will make them happy as well, he's a match winner. I think India will struggle without a 5th bowler, especially if Australia goes after Ashwin like they usually do here in Oz.

Australia XI

Wade

Burns

Marnus

Smith

Head

Green

Paine

Cummins

Starc

Lyon

Hazlewood

The Aussie opening pair are walking ducks here, if they can get the total to 20 without a loss it will be an achievement, India will have to know that a couple of early wickets is the key, getting Marnus & Smith in early is key, otherwise Australia will pile on the runs.

Very excited to see Cameron Green play, so much hype around him he looks like he will be a star for decades to come

Fascinating contest so far. In 29 overs, India have only hit 2 boundaries...Pujara hasn't hit any in 101 balls at the crease so far.

The pitch seems a tad slow, with some tennis ball bounce. It doesn't look unplayable, but India going at just 1.5 an over so far!

Excellent day of Test cricket. Is there really no one else from ZC watching this match?

Kohli's run out potentially a game-changing thing cuz it certainly shaves 50-100 or even more runs off India's likely total. Middle order wobble happened right after Kohli got out.

Burns & Wade both playing for their Test careers here in this match, you'd think who ever is replaced by Warner for the boxing day test will have played their last test for Australia considering their ages and with the talent coming through.

Where is Zimmdoggy with his odds, I reckon a run-out would be short price 😂

Umesh Yadav looks like he's changed his action a bit, very Waqar Younis now

jaybro wrote: ↑Fri Dec 18, 2020 5:11 am

Umesh Yadav looks like he's changed his action a bit, very Waqar Younis now

He's always had kind of a Waqar-ish action. I didn't notice anything vastly different. But bowlers are constantly tweaking their actions. Taijul Islam bowls like Vettori now that he's our spin bowling coach.

Australia batting too slowly. RR of less than 2. The bowling is good, but its not that good. AUS in some trouble here. They will need the tail to wag, and Labuschagne to get a score and see if they can keep India's lead down to 20-40 runs. If India can bundle AUS out under 200, they will be in the driver's seat.

India collapsing big time 5-15

6-19 now Kohli gone too

CraY crazy first session

For starters, they need a proper coach. Not a yes-man on paid holiday.

Time to swallow the pride and get Kumble back, or promote Dravid to manage the senior team.

Is Ravi Shastri still the Indian coach? He seems to be far too arrogant for his own good.

But yeah that was an epic collapse. Blink and you'd miss it. I went downstairs to fix some dinner and I came back 30 minutes later, not a run had been scored, but 3 top order wickets had fallen, lmao.

Kriterion_BD wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 7:30 pm

Is Ravi Shastri still the Indian coach? He seems to be far too arrogant for his own good.

Yes he is. He is there because he gels well with Kohli. I don't remember the last time he gave some advice of improvement to some player and they actually tuned their game to get better. Players like Rahul and Rahane could actually benefit from someone who can study their game in depth and suggest mini-tweaks but it is all lost in this era of IPL bling.

I did watch the highlights of that massacre later, and it was extremely high quality bowling by the Aussies. Still, probably only Rahane and Agarwal (both innings) got out to unplayable beauties. Others could have done better.

Can you imagine if Zimbabwe had been rolled for 32 in Australia? There would be all sorts of experts calling for our suspension from test cricket, calls for us to never tour Australia again, etc.

Since the WTC started, away teams seem to be getting bowled out for very cheap scores. We've also gone back to the trend of home teams pretty much being guaranteed to win.

Kriterion_BD wrote: ↑Mon Dec 21, 2020 6:36 am

Since the WTC started, away teams seem to be getting bowled out for very cheap scores. We've also gone back to the trend of home teams pretty much being guaranteed to win.

Yeah, it seems as though nobody can really win away from home. I think the calibre of test teams is not all that great these days.

Yeah, NZ really murdered WI in that series too. Did not expect that in the second test at least, with KW missing.

Overseas wins have never been easy to get for evenly matched sides

jaybro wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:08 am

Overseas wins have never been easy to get for evenly matched sides

Yeah I think its time to do another stats research on this topic!