Cricket Blog

The “Revenge Series” is about to begin in a few hours time. The Australians are pumped up. The Indians are fresh from a high that they have never experienced in over two decades. The atmosphere is going to be high voltage. The drama has already started.

What can we expect from this series? The Aussies are definitely hurt by the semi-final loss to a bunch of nobody’s with not a single superstar and for some inexplicable reason they have not liked the celebrations in India. By now, I thought, they would have been used to see this. Indians love to celebrate and if that means blowing a win out of proportions, then so be it.

There has been a shift in rivalry in cricket in the last decade. The India vs Pakistan and Australia vs England series don’t generate that much hype anymore than an India vs Australia series does. Even though Australia has won 9 out of it’s last 10 matches against India, the 10th match (the semi-final loss) has hit them the hardest. Which also means that they are going to come down hard at the Indians. Which, in turn, means that this is going to be one hell of a series if India can match the aggression.

Adam Gilchrist and Ponting have repeatedly pointed out that the Australians are the Test and ODI champions. Absolutely no disagreement with that. But with Twenty20 going to be a big format in the coming years, India can be proud of their achievement of winning the major title with only one game as their experience.

The first match is a day-night game at Bangalore which has not been a happy hunting ground for the Indians off late. However, the mind games that Ponting and his mates are trying to play would actually result in a serious backlash from the Indian batting trio of Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid.

The Big 3 are on their last phase in the shorter format of the game and they will be playing for pride. Sachin and Saurav already demonstrated that in England. Dravid, without the burden of captaincy, would be raring to go after Ponting and his men. In my opinion these three should be given the proverbial License to Kill. No holds barred. If India want to make a statement then this is the time. Annihilate the Aussies at their own game. It’s really funny when other teams play aggressive cricket against the Australians, the boys from Oz don’t like it that much. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.

From India’s point of view, they have defeated the Australians in a pressure game and they should keep that in mind - the invincible can be beaten. With RP Singh and Zaheer Khan to spearhead the pace attack, we have a combo that can truly shake the Australian top order. It is unfortunate that Piyush Chawla has been injured. But the silver lining is that Harbhajan Singh has struck form at the right time. Remember, he truly made a statement against the same opponents and now that he has been given a second lease of life, rest assured the “turbanator” is going to be completely charged up.

Joining him is Irfan Pathan who is also coming back into the team with a superb performance in the Twenty20 world cup, not to forget the man of the match award in the final. He leads so much balance to the final playing XI that his performance can make or break this series.

Australia are going without four key players - Michael Hussey, Shaun Tait, Nathan Bracken and Shane Watson. Ricky Ponting is not going to play the first match as he is still not fully fit from his hamstring strain. This gives a rare opportunity for players like Adam Voges, James Hopes and Ben Hilfenhaus who are still new to international cricket. These three have to make these chances count otherwise they will always stay in the sidelines. And if there is any team to make their presence felt, then it’s against India.

Get ready for a series that should offer drama, controversy, excellent cricket and plenty of aggression.

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