Ahead of next month’s Border Gavaskar Trophy against the Rohit Sharma-led side, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has opened up Team India’s Test series loss to New Zealand. India conceded an unassailable 2-0 lead to New Zealand in their ongoing three-match series, suffering a first Test series loss at home after a gap of almost 12 years. The defeat has dented India’s hopes of reaching the World Test Championship (WTC) final. Rohit and his men are scheduled to play six more Tests in the current cycle, including the all-important five-game series in Australia.
India have won each of their last two Test tours of Australia, including a 2-1 win with a second-string squad during their last visit.
Australia coach McDonald feels pacer Mohammed Shami‘s absence will be a big loss for India. Shami did not find a place in the squad as he is yet to regain full fitness after an ankle surgery earlier this year.
“Mohammed Shami is a big loss. The way our batters speak about his relentless nature, his line and lengths, the way he goes about his business, a real good complimenting skill set to (Jasprit) Bumrah so think that one-two combo they’ll lack a little bit, and they’ll miss that,” McDonald told ABC Insiders.
Despite the loss against New Zealand, McDonaldo insisted that his team cannot underestimate India, adding that the Australian players are well aware of the threat possessed by India’s reserve players.
“But needless to say we saw what happened last time, they had reserves that came in and did the job as well so they cannot be underestimated at all,” he added.
Shami, who is out of action since last year’s 50-over World Cup final due to an injury followed by a surgery, had recently said that though he started bowling but would only like to first play some domestic matches before getting into the national squad.
The selectors have given a first opportunity to Indian Premier League (IPL) star Nitish Kumar Reddy and pacer Harshit Rana in the red-ball series.
India’s squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), R Ashwin, R Jadeja, Mohd. Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.
Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed
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