• Home
  • Cricket News
  • Shastri Reckons Indias Fabulous Five Can Beat Aussies In Their Own Den

Shastri reckons India’s fabulous five can beat Aussies in their own den

Indian bowling coach Ravi Shastri reckons that the pentagon of  Indian pacers in Jasprit Bumrah, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Navdeep Saini, and Mohammed Siraj or the ‘fabulous five’ as he likes to call them, can get the better of the Australian batting line up in their own den. Admitting that Ishant Sharma’s absence will obviously impact the Indian Test team in terms of experience, but that does not mean that the present bowling lineup is any less.

"His absence does make a difference to the fast-bowling department, but then we have the capacity among the young bowlers to deliver," Shastri said about Ishant to Sportstar.

At the same time, he described the abilities of the rest of the five bowlers available for the Test series calling them fabulous five. The Test series begins with the first Test, a day/night affair in Adelaide. 

"Yadav has the experience. Saini is young and fast. Bumrah is one of the best in business. Shami is raring to go. Siraj is an exciting prospect. You put up runs on the board and watch these fast bowlers hunt the opposition. They can beat Australia in their own den," said the 58-year-old.

The Indian team would be without the services of Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma in the Test series and captain Virat Kohli would also leave after the first Test. In such a situation, alongside the pandemic, the situation gets tough for the Blue Brigade and Shastri knows it. But he is sure that the Indian team will step on the gas in time.

"We are prepared and let me remind you that never has cricket, or a cricket team, faced such a situation since the Second World War. We are going through the drills of staying mentally tough and approaching the series by taking one step at a time," he said.

Powered by Froala Editor

Discover more
Top Stories
news

Tim Paine still in pain on losing last Border Gavaskar Trophy against India

Australia's Test captain Tim Paine has revealed that the home Test series loss to India, suffered in 2018/19 season, still rankles with him. That series was played when the Aussie side was reeling under the absence of its two most prolific batsmen - Steve Smith and David Warner. The Indians took advantage and earned their first-ever away series win over the Australians. Speaking to a radio channel days before India commence another tour of Australia, the wicketkeeper-batsmen said that he still recalls that loss with poignancy. The Aussie skipper also didn't see the absence of Smith and Warner as a plausible excuse for that defeat. "Certainly for me, sitting back it still annoys me that we lost that Test series," Paine said in an interview with 2GB radio station. He added, "Whether we had Steve or David or not you don't want to be losing any Test matches or Test series you're involved in, so that still grinds me a little bit." However, all set to go into another four-match contest agaianst the Indian team, Paine feels his players will use that humbling experience to raise the level of their game and perform better. "I know that it drives a lot of the guys that were involved in that and I certainly know Steve and David are looking forward to coming back and showing just how good they are as well," the 35-year old stated. This time, not only would the Aussie skipper have the services of Smith and Warner, both of whom have scored heavily since their return to the Australian team, but also the prolific form of Marnus Labuschagne. Indeed, Paine is expecting his entire side to rally and produce a better collectife effort. "We're a much better all-round side. Not just adding Steve and David back into it, which is a hell of a lot of runs to add back into a side, but I think every other cricketer in that team has improved in the last 18 months as well and we've been playing some really good cricket," the incumbent skipper tsaid in his statement. While batting needs to be many nothes up in this series for the hosts compared to earlier, its the bowling also there needs rectification. The veteraln cricketer has acknowledged that its was the shambolic performance with the bat for his team that lost them the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood continue to be the leading bowlers for Australia with the new ball. But it will be Nathan Lyon whose flight and guile may prove too hot to thande slom

news

Steve Smith feels glad on finding his 'hands again' before India series

Former Australian captain and now a star of the batting line up, Steve Smith is feeling happy about things clicking for him in his technique while he is preparing for an all-important series against India. The Blacktown Sports Park where the members of the Australian squad who have returned from the Indian Premier League in the UAE, Steve Smith has found a perfect positioning of his hands on the bat which he found missing during the IPL which did not turn out to be well with the bat for him. The past few days I have found something ... I have found my hands which I am extremely excited about," Smith said today. It's taken me about three-and-a-half or four months to do it. I had a big smile on my face after training the other day, I walked past (men's team assistant coach) Andrew McDonald and said 'I've found them again'”, Smith said. Smith said the missing aspect in his batting technique was a pretty simple flaw but it made him feel uneasy about where he was meeting his bat with the ball and ultimately it hindered his performances. “Theoretically it is a simple thing, but it is just getting that feel and the look of the bat behind my toe the right way and the way my hands come up on the bat. It's hard to explain but it just hasn't quite been right until probably two days ago and I found a little something and everything just clicked in. It changes where you meet the ball to hit the ball in certain places. Just slight things and bits of rhythm aren't quite right,” Smith added. Steve Smith did not bat for a considerably longer period of time and blamed it for taking a long time in ironing out this chink in his batting technique which is unique in so many ways. He expressed immense happiness on being able to find that old sort of feeling while batting after finding the perfect rhythm at the batting crease. “It's taken me a lot longer than usual, I don't know why … I pretty much didn't bat for four months at the start of COVID. So whether it's taken me a bit longer to get them back, I don't know but I'm glad I've been able to find something in the last few days," Steve Smith concluded. Steve Smith will be one of the mainstays of the Australian batting line up in the series against Australia and the Aussies will bank on him to post high scores to put the India team which will be without its best batsmen in the Test series.

news

Tendulkar advices Indian bowlers to bowl fifth stump line to Steve Smith

The legendary Indian batsman who has been himself difficult to bowl to for hundreds of bowlers during his playing days reckons the Australian middle-order master Steve Smith too would be a tough nut to crack for the bowlers and hence a different ploy is needed to tackle him. Sachin advised the Indian bowlers to bowl the fifth stump line to Smith to get him to knick deliveries past the wicket. “Smith’s technique is unconventional...Normally, we tell a bowler in Test matches to bowl on and around off-stump or maybe fourth stump line. But for Smith, because he shuffles, maybe that line (of delivery) moves further away by four to five inches,” the Master Blaster said in an interview to PTI. “One has to aim between (imaginary) fourth and fifth stump for Steve to nick one. It’s just a mental adjustment of line, more than anything else,” he added. Tendulkar, 48, also said that he had read somewhere that Smith had said he was ready for the short-pitched stuff. In that scenario, the Mumbai born said that exploiting the fifth stump channel, on Australian pitches, which generally don’t offer as much swing like England, would be an ideal way to frustrate the New South Wales batter. “I think, he needs to be tested on and around that off-stump channel. Keep him on the back-foot and induce that early mistake. You can’t use saliva, so it’s a different case if wickets have a lot more life. I don’t know if they will have greenish wickets for the ball to do a little bit,” he said.