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India and Australia are gearing up for the upcoming Border-Gavaskar trophy in a different manner. While the Aussies are preparing 70 km away from Bengaluru in Alur, the Indian team have started their week-long camp in Nagpur where the first match will begin on February 9. Australia have roped in Maheesh Pithiya, a 21-year-old spinner with an uncanny resemblance to Ravichandran Ashwin, to train on spin-friendly tracks and are leaving no stone unturned to challenge India.
India's last Test series was against Bangladesh and the two Test matches reflected the issue of close-range fielding where start batsman Virat Kohli dropped three catches in the Mirpur Test. In addition to Virat's poor show in fielding, KL Rahul too struggled when it came to close-range fielding. The team management took note of that and are preparing for the same ahead of the first Test against Australia.
After the practice session Dravid reflected on the issue and said that the Team is focusing on their slip fielding, he said - "The emphasis has been on fielding and more importantly close catching which will be very crucial in the series against Australia."
India have played a lot of limited overs cricket post-T20 World Cup and more recently the emphasis was on ODI and T20 cricket as the last Test was concluded in December. Some of the players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav etc were part of the ODI setup and thus a long camp will help the players get accustomed to red ball cricket. In addition to these players India's star all-rounder makes his comeback to Internation Cricket with the Australia series and thus harmony was needed according to Head Coach Rahul Dravid.
"Everyone looks in really good shape. It's nice to get the Test team together again. We had a lot of white-ball cricket over the last month or so. Some of those boys, shifting from white-ball to red-ball, it's nice for them to have that extended period in the nets. The surfaces have been really good as well," Dravid said in a BCCI video.
Despite having a week-long camp Rahul Dravid felt that it was still short by his standards when compared to his playing days but despite that he is happy that it was a fruitful camp and he is happy with it.
"Even though this is a short one by my standards, I like to have longer camps where we can work with people. But even then, we're happy to get five days or six days in Nagpur. It's been fruitful and the boys are looking good," Dravid concluded.
With so much happening both in Nagpur and Alur, who holds the edge in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy? Without the services of Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, Australia have had major blows lately and thus India will be hoping to capitalise on their chances but they too are without Jasprit Bumrah who is out of action for a long time. But on sub-continent pitches will the pacers be missed or will the spinners steal the show going forward?
Border Gavaskar Trophy 2023 schedule:
1st Test at Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Nagpur - February 9-13
2nd Test at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi - February 17-21
3rd Test at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala - March 1-5
4th Test at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad - March 9-13
India’s squad for the first two Tests vs Australia: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.
Australia Test squad for India tour: Pat Cummins (capt), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner.
