After losing the opening two Test matches of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar series, visitors Australia now stares at an embarrassing possibility of getting whitewashed 4-0 by India. The task has only become harder for the Baggy Greens as multiple star players have been ruled out of the remaining two matches. Captain Pat Cummins will miss the 3rd Test in Indore while star batter David Warner will miss both upcoming Tests due to injury. Paceman Josh Hazlewood and all-rounder Ashton Agar have also returned to Australia.
Amidst their struggle in the Border-Gavaskar series, former India spinner Harbhajan Singh has called the current Australian Team 'mentally fragile' and clueless.
"If you compare to other Australian teams which toured earlier - we don't want to go 30-40 years back but even if we go that far - I think this is probably the weakest team. Not in terms of skills, mentally they are very fragile. They are not able to handle pressure the way the Aussies used to. It'll be fair to say this is not the Aussie-Aussie kind of team that we used to see or play against," Harbhajan told The Indian Express in an interview.
The Aussie batters have struggled to put up any resistance against Indian spinners. Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin have had their way with relative ease. Harbhajan believes that the lack of 'planning' has hurt the Baggy Greens on the current India tour.
"The Aussies used to have a lot of plans before touring any country. They understood the conditions better than the other teams. That's the reason they were a bit more successful than others, even in India," the former India spinner added.
"This team, particularly, are clueless. They don't have any plans. In the first game, they were clueless. They knew these conditions would be challenging for any batter - the ball will spin from the first ball. It's not something that's started to happen now; it's been happening for the last eight-10 years.
"In 2012-13, they lost on similar wickets. They were clueless even at that point in time but they fought better than this. But this team, I don't see anyone standing up and taking those challenges and trying to do something different than what others are doing," he added.
India and Australia will lock horns in the 3rd Test in Indore, starting March 01. The visitors will look to redeem themselves while the hosts would look to take another step towards whitewashing Australia.
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